Sweet Dissonance

Dissonance is a word with a negative sound, but it is also the key to music's ability to move us. Without the tension of dissonance, there would be no pull on our heartstrings.

Composers in Vienna had a special knack for bringing out the sweet side of dissonance, and this album is anchored by Viennese works from different times: Mozart's Dissonance Quartet, Webern's Six Bagatelles Op. 9, and Kreisler's String Quartet, are surrounded by pieces by Purcell and Kurtág that highlight other sides of dissonance.

Although barely four minutes in length, Webern's Bagatelles, described by his teacher Schoenberg as "a novel in a single gesture, joy in a single breath," sit at the heart of the project. Webern is often regarded as a cerebral modernist, but this project flips the script: Played on historical instruments with their expanded range of colour and texture, Webern's music emerges as a product of late romantic expression, a distillation of Fritz Kreisler's rubato and portamento-inflected world. The potency of tension and release in Mozart's famous Dissonance quartet similarly gains new significance when heard in the context of earlier polyphony and chromaticism. Beyond its musical core, Sweet Dissonance is an invitation to contemplate and lean into the deeply human sensation of dissonance.

The ensemble's recording of Sweet Dissonance will be released with Cobra records in 2027.