The Kuss Quartet's Onyx debut of Schubert and Berg was praised by reviewers worldwide. With Theme Russe, the group offers listeners an enchanting program of Russian music for string quartet. The multiple-composer Variations on a Russian Folk Song has composers such as Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Lyadov rub shoulders with lesser-known names such as Vitols, Blumenfeld, Ewald, Winkler, Sokolov and Artsybuschev - each composer contributing one variation. Selections from Tchaikovsky's Album for the Young are followed by two 20th-century works - Stravinsky's effervescent Concertino, and Schnittke's spare and somber Canon in memoriam Igor Stravinsky. Tchaikovsky's ever-popular first String Quartet concludes this ingenious recital.
