Vanhal: 4 String Quartets

One may rightly claim that Johann Baptist Vanhal (1739-1813), who traced his roots to Bohemia, was one of the most productive composers of the 18th c. He wrote a total of 1,377 (!) works; sixty string quartets having appeared in print through to 1787, with thirty-six others in manuscript or documented in catalogue entries. Quantity aside, Vanhal quite early gained fame with the quality of his works. For CPO, the Lotus String Quartet, which gained notice with its triumph at the Intl Chamber Music Competition in Osaka, Japan in 1994, interprets a selection of these quartets.