IGNATZ WAGHALTER (1879-1940): String Quartet in D, Op. 3, KAROL RATHAUS (1895-1954): String Quartet No. 5, Op. 72, IGNACE STRASFOGEL (1909-1994): String Quartet No. 1*. * - First Recording.

Description: Three Polish-Jewish musicians who were spared ghetto, concentration camp and violent death thanks to timely emigration to the U.S. Waghalter studied under Joachim and Gernsheim and showed a palpable enthusiasm for Dvořák in his earlier works. Strasfogel was a prodigy, accepted into Schreker’s composition class at the age of 14 although his two-movement quartet of c.1928 makes a confident and unorthodox use of twelve-tone technique. Rathaus needs no introduction; his quartet, from the last year of his life, is characteristically melancholy but lyrical, expressive yet subdued and employing his own version of dodecaphony. Polish String Quartet Berlin.