The Doric String Quartet is now firmly established as one of the outstanding quartets of its generation. Now in its eleventh season, it regularly performs at major festivals and venues throughout the UK as well as abroad in continental Europe and Asia. This is the Quartet’s debut CD on Chandos as exclusive artists.

Most famous for his lushly romantic film scores, Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote a quantity of music for the concert hall and the stage, as well as three highly individual string quartets between the years 1920 and 1945. Korngold was one of the great prodigies in the history of classical music, and by the time he started work on his First String Quartet (completed 1923), he had already written what many consider to be his magnum opus, the opera Die tote Stadt.

The three quartets range widely in style and are all very appealing. The First is notable for its strikingly adventurous harmony, the Second (1933) for its sheer wealth of melodic appeal, whilst the Third (1945) uses material from his film scores, and is as varied and dramatic as many of the films which he scored.