Clarion Quartet Breaking the Silence

"With humane purpose and artistic virtuosity, the Clarion Quartet gives a voice to great composers who have suffered the injustices of suppression and imposed silence."

The title speaks for itself: “Breaking the Silence” is exactly what the debut album of the Clarion Quartet aims to do, and it dedicates itself to the music of composers who were silenced, persecuted, or murdered by German Nazis. This is the fascinating music of an entire generation of composers that is only slowly finding the way back into the concert hall, music that should be heard.

The four musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra display a distinctive sense of timing, precision, and partnership that informs their virtuosic quartet playing.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Viktor Ullmann, and Erwin Schulhoff lived independent lives and offer, characteristically, three autonomous soundscapes. Yet they are inextricably connected by the persecutions of the Nazi Regime and the disruption of the Second World War: none of the composers could freely develop his talent, and all were forgotten after their deaths.

During a European tour of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2016, the Clarion Quartet gave a concert in the historical Musiksaal of the concentration camp Terezín. This highly emotional experience gave birth to “Breaking the Silence”.