Quartet Integra Beethoven The Final Statement String Quartet No 16 Vinyl

"I am not surprised that Quartet Integra plays Beethoven well. They are the direct inheritors of Tokyo String Quartet through friendship and mentor/student relationships both in Japan and in the United States; you may sense their pedigree on this album. When we discussed Beethoven’s final published work with our executive producers Craig and Diane Martin, they jumped at the opportunity to underwrite such a project. We recorded Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16, Op 135 in Los Angeles in celebrated Zipper Hall at Colburn School in April 2025, a few days after the quartet’s acclaimed performances in Wigmore Hall in London. The quartet left again after our recording for summer concerts in Asia before moving to Paris to begins a two year residency at the Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre. This extraordinary young ensemble, Kyoka Misawa and Rintaro Kikuno on violins, Itsuki Yamamoto on viola, and cellist Ye Un Park, play Classical, Romantic, Contemporary and Renaissance music equally well. The ensemble had just performed Beethoven’s first string quartet in London and they were game to capitalize on their “Beethoven High.” They also wanted to utilize the superb acoustics at Colburn School while the quartet was still living in Los Angeles as Colburn School’s string quartet in residence, and we knew Zipper Hall would do the Beethoven special justice. Beethoven wrote this piece in 1826 at the height of his Romantic powers, but the quartet looks back with irony and nostalgia to his classical period. This was his final statement in his groundbreaking series of Beethoven’s string quartets. Opus 135 premiered in 1828, performed by Ignaz Schuppanzigh and his famous ensemble. Colburn’s President Sel Kardan, Director of Artistic Administration Nick Gianopoulos and Yarlung Special Advisor and Colburn Professor Martin Beaver rolled out the red carpet for Yarlung’s return to Zipper Hall. Working in this magnificent acoustic space with Colburn’s friendly and supportive staff is always a treat, as twelve or fifteen earlier successes with Yarlung musicians in Zipper Hall attest. Fellow recording engineer and equipment designer Arian Jansen and I used Yarlung’s SonoruS ATR12 to record Agfa-formula 468 analog tape, and for our accompanying digital releases we used our Merging Technologies HAPI to record 256fs DSD in stereo and surround sound and the SonoruS ADC to record PCM. We used our friend Ted Ancona’s AKG C24 microphone previously owned by Frank Sinatra, and Yarlung Audio vacuum tube microphone amplification designed and built by Elliot Midwood. As we celebrate Yarlung’s 20th Anniversary, we enjoy thinking back to our original inspiration. We began working with young musicians starting international concert careers and sharing their transformative performances with the world. Yarlung Records takes its name from the Yarlung Valley in Central Tibet, which legend holds as a meeting place between heaven and earth. It is in this valley, at the site of Yambulakhang Castle in our Yarlung Records logo, where Heaven and Earth touched in order to transform humanity. What could be a better metaphor for the transformative power of great music? I feel a deep connection between this mythical name for our record label and Quartet Integra. Hearing them play and working with these four good-natured and talented people reminded me why we created Yarlung Records in the first place. --Bob Attiyeh, producer