String quartets recorded for the first time

In his 1950 publication Memories writes the composer Richard Flury (1896-1967): "I do not consider the possibility of new and original musical ideas with Romantic means to be exhausted by any means, and I seek originality less in the invention of new, technical means of expression at any price than in the vitality of a strong experience. Creativity in art is like an organic growth in which the temperament and intuitive powers of the soul are more involved than the intellect, which is in danger of having a disastrous influence on the natural development of art."

Flury's String Quartets No. 2 (1929) and No. 3 (1938), which have never been recorded before, have been released on a CD by the English label Toccata Classics in outstanding interpretations by the Colla-Parte Quartet from Bern. They are good examples of Flury's aesthetic, which was influenced by his teachers Hans Huber, Ernst Kurth, Joseph Lauber and Joseph Marx. The "unbearable accumulation of sought-after and also unintentional accidental dissonances" in some works, which he criticizes in his memoirs, is sought in vain; tonality is preserved, as is the classical four-movement structure. It is obvious that Flury, a central figure in Solothurn's musical life as a teacher at the cantonal school and conductor of the town orchestra, was a trained violinist and violist and knew the string instruments very well. The Colla-Parte-Quartett, founded in 1997, with Georg Jacobi, Susanna Holliger, Friedemann Jähnig and Eva Simmen, plays the works with commitment, nuance and color, allowing them to come into their own.

Richard Flury: Chamber Music, Volume Two: String Quartet No. 2 and No. 3. Colla Parte Quartet. Toccata Classics TOCC 0717