Three Quartets

The Three Quartets by Anton Arensky, on texts by Afanasy Fet—one of Russia’s foremost Romantic poets—are in the finest tradition of Romantic vocal chamber music. They can be sung by four solo voices or SATB chorus, joined, in this instance, by a virtuoso cello part, which greatly adds to their originality and unusual appeal. Each piece can stand as a miniature on its own, and, taken together, the three make for a highly attractive program set between 7 and 8 minutes in length. This new edition features a beautiful singing translation in English by Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter, which captures well the spirit of Fet’s poetty, as well as the original Russian text in both phonetics and Cyrillic. Published both as a set and as individual pieces.