Piano Quartet No. 2

Second Piano Quartet is an 18-minute successor to Tsontakis’ first piano quartet Bagatelles. Both were recorded by the Broyhill Chamber Ensemble on the Koch International CD, Tsontakis: Piano Quartet Trilogy. A recent Grawemeyer Award recipient, Tsontakis is garnering quite a bit of attention. In a New York Times review, Anthony Tommasini writes of the Second Piano Quartet, “The first movement ... is called ‘Lazy,’ and true to the title, the piano begins with seemingly aimless, thickly chromatic piano chords. Yet the harmonies are so pungent and the chord shifts so sneaky that when a magisterial melody for the cello breaks out, you can't stop listening to those fidgety piano chords.”