Kritik in "Musical Pointers", London, April 2006

(Ausschnitt)

The Asasello's mixed programme of Beethoven Op 18/6, Mendelssohn Op 13 and Kojevnikov No 3 is altogether different; one of the finest debut CDs I have come across, exceptional in conception and in execution.

The programme of "three quartets which all express the tension inherent in the transition from youth to maturity" was chosen with great care, explained in a thoughtful and intelligent liner note (translated in impeccable English!) by the players - "between the innocence of maturing youth and the responsibility of adulthood Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Kojevnikov follow very different paths".

They go on to discuss this in socio/political contexts, and it was an inspired decision to feature the response to Schnittke's death by their leader (then eighteen, already an accomplished composer) as the filling in the sandwich. Rostislav Kojevnikov had lived through the fall of the Iron Curtain and moved from Novosibirsk to Basel, where he met his European friends and quartet colleagues, now all based in Cologne. The 6-movement in memoriam Alfred Schnittke is unashamedly derivative, with quotes and shocks characteristic of his revered master, absolutely appropriate for an 18 yr-old. Mendelssohn's Op 12 is the work in which the young composer of the A Midsummer Night's Dream overture "rediscovered his own authentic style" and it receives here a warm, affectionate performance.
The Asasello Quartet's account of Beethoven's Op 18/6 La Malincolia quartet has a freshness which brought back our response to their Haydn and Mozart in the competition; it had the edge over the Wihans account of it in their Beethoven intégrale (Op 14/1 through to the last quartets + several preludes and fugues) - a fully competitive set at a fair price if you want another, with a few rare extras?
As readers of Musical Pointers know, we favour unique discs over single composer selections, and recommend you on no account to fail to acquire the Asasello's CD, which should prove a passport towards concert engagements everywhere, notwithstanding their absence from the London prizewinners roster.

(by Peter Grahame Woolf)