Champs Hill Records continues its survey of the neglected music of Ludwig Thuille
with a new recording of his String Quartets Nos 1 & 2, performed by the Allegri
Quartet.

· Leader Ofer Falk describes in the booklet how he came to know Thuille’s music
through a chance encounter with a score for one of the Quintets (which the Allegri
Quartet have recorded for Champs Hill Records, available on CHRCD002) - music
left behind in a piano stool given to a friend.

· Ofer says: “Here was a true masterpiece. A creation by a previously unknown (at
least to us) yet masterful composer at the height of his prowess. The style was late
romantic. The structure was of the grandest of scales, yet traditional and flawlessly
constructed. The harmonic language had elements of Brahms, Bruckner and Wagner,
but to our ears it most resembled the music (early to mid period) of Richard Strauss.”

· The Allegri Quartet are Britain’s oldest chamber group, as they celebrate their
60th anniversary. “The current line-up plays with elegance and cleanness of
detail. Avoiding heavy gesture in favour of nimble energy” Fiona Maddocks
Independent on Sunday - June 2013

· Born in Bolzano (Bozen), capital of Southern Tirol, Ludwig Thuille lived and
created in fin de siècle Munich and was one of the leading forces in pre World-War I
Germany. His operas were successfully performed in central opera houses from
Moscow to New York; his vocal and instrumental pieces were often performed in
Europe's main concert venues; His treatise on harmony (Harmonielehre) became a
standard textbook throughout Europe and many of the continent's musicians were
brought up on Thuille's harmonic thoughts and conceptions.