Florence Price and Leo Sowerby String Quartets
Raymond Bisha introduces a new album of works for string quartet by Florence Price and Leo Sowerby, who were both prominent members of the Chicago music community in the 1930s and 1940s. Most of Florence Price\u2019s compositions remained unpublished at her death, and her String Quartet in A minor\xa0was not performed in her lifetime. Her\xa0Five Folksongs in Counterpoint entwine and enrich the famous melodies with African American vernacular idioms and colourful harmony, while Sowerby\u2019s String Quartet in G minor\xa0reveals music undeserving of its decades of obscurity in the Avalon Quartet's world premiere recording of the work.