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The Kronos Quartet 25 Years [10 CD box set] 1998
The Kronos Quartet focuses on the more, shall we call it "post-avantgardish" composers. Thus Kronos has, in addition to playing and commissioning music by leading contemporary composers and then in particular those associated with minimalism, made forays into world- and non-western (and even pop) music.
The fifth disc contains the perhaps most immediately approachable work, Osvaldo Golijov's `The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind', a stirringly atmospheric, visionary and almost hysteric kletzmer-based work. It is interestingly contrasted with Sofia Gubaidulina's compelling but far more concentration-requiring fourth quartet and Ali-Zadeh's atmospheric but overlong Azerbaijani folk music inspired `Mugam Sayagi'.