At the end of the nineties, an apprentice came to Wolfgang Rihm who was not really persuaded. That is precisely why this student - Boris Yoffe, born in St. Petersburg - was admitted to the composition class. Rihm had an intuition for these kinds of things, at least that was what he told himself. Trusting Rihm was risky, as Yoffe's ambitions went little further than composing one minimalist string
… quartet a day. During his final exam, Yoffe came out with a box full of that stuff. The examination committee then decided to leave the box closed and to award the student his diploma, that's how it is possible. It is said that this wonderful oeuvre is now in the thousands of quartets, and this number is of course only increasing. On this CD we hear a number of quartets from the last years, interspersed with vocal pieces from a similar project. Also these moths - on texts from the Song of Songs - are so small that an integral setting of this Bible book should yield several hundred pieces. This makes this ECM release an intriguing case of 'take it or leave it'. For some it will be a revelation. Someone else will only find it monotonous. (HJ)more
