This landmark recording brings together three of the composer's most significant chamber works performed by three acclaimed young string quartets. These remarkable compositions engage deeply with the classical music tradition while pursuing distinctly contemporary formal and expressive concerns.

Composed across a span of sixteen years, these three works trace an arc of formal invention, emotional depth, and — in the case of Icarus in Flight — a genuinely novel compositional method. Together they represent Festinger’s decades-long engagement with a genre that has occupied composers from Haydn and Beethoven through Bartók and Shostakovich to the present day. Taking advantage of the string quartet's blend of homogeneous sonority, coloristic range, contrapuntal richness and potential for virtuosity, these works are at once fresh and decidedly of their own time.

The Jasper String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet and Verona Quartet are among the most sought-after ensembles of their generation, widely celebrated for their illuminating performances of both standard and contemporary repertoire.