Spanish Publication RITMO Magazine gave In Friendship a ****A rating — the highest rating their reviewers award. Below is are some translated quotes from the review, as well as a link to the PDF of the full review in the original Spanish.
“Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, Op. 74 by the Valencian composer César Cano asks to be placed in the same room as the greatest clarinet quintets, rooms reserved for the likes of Brahms, Mozart, and Weber. This music, of dazzling intensity has put the Alexander String Quartet and the fantastic Joan Enric Lluna in charge of it’s release, a responsibility that is key in this magnificent interpretation of music this good and this complex. Brief and very well structured, the naturalness in which this quintet flows guarantees its longevity, especially with beautiful moments like Cantos oblicuos, a slow movement where we can imagine Bartók walking amount the notes.
After Cano there is what is considered one of the masterpieces of Chamber Music, the marvelous Quintet in B Minor for Clarinet and Strings, Op. 115 by Brahms, a piece that Lluna knows deeply…Fantastic performance, of special luminosity, with Lluna mastering it, capable of reaching every corner of the dense white cloth to the music.” — RITMO
Click to view the review in the original Spanish.
Purchase In Friendship: