Release Day!

Gershwin & Kern

The Alexander String Quartet & Joan Enric Lluna

Foghorn Classics CD2008

The Alexander String Quartet, now in its 31st season and among the world’s premiere chamber ensembles, releases a vibrant new recording of much-loved music by George Gershwin and Jerome Kern on its Foghorn Classics label. The quartet is joined by clarinetist Joan Enric Lluna for an exhilarating performance of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” suite in a new arrangement by Carl Davis, along with six Jerome Kern masterpieces, including Bill, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Once in a Blue Moon, plus Gershwin’s beautiful Lullaby for String Quartet.

This quintessentially American recording was inspired from a conversation between Lluna and Carl Davis following a performance in Spain, when the clarinetist confessed that he loved playing Gershwin songs more than anything else. Lluna suggested an arrangement for clarinet and string quartet, his ASQ collaborators — with whom he had previously recorded clarinet quintets by Brahms, Mozart and César Cano — in mind. Davis took the original Heifetz piano version and rapidly arranged the violin part for clarinet, but with an added unique twist: brief solo cadenzas which lead the listener from one movement to the next.

Track Listing:

George Gershwin: From the “Porgy & Bess” Suite” – arranged by Carl Davis:

1. Summertime
2. A Woman Is a Sometime Thing
3. Bess, You Is My Woman Now
4. It Ain’t Necessarily So

Jerome Kern:

1. All the Things You Are
2. The Way You Look Tonight
3. Bill
4. The Song Is You
5. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
6. Once in a Blue Moon

George Gershwin:

1. Lullaby for String Quartet

Track 6: “The Way You Look Tonight” by Jerome Kern

Stream via SoundCloud

Read some of the liner notes from this release!

Purchase via:

• iTunes
• Amazon
• ArkivMusic
• Foghorn Classics
• Allegro Classical