This is the ECM New Series debut of the Parker Quartet, a programme built on contrast. Two concentrated works by György Kurtág, the Six moments musicaux op. 44 and the Officium breve in memoriam Andreae Szervánszky op. 28, frame Antonín Dvořák's String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat major op. 97, written in America in 1893. For the Dvořák the quartet is joined by the violist Kim Kashkashian, one of its early mentors. The quartet's reading of Kurtág grew out of extensive work with the Hungarian composer himself.

The Parker Quartet was formed in Boston by students of the New England Conservatory. Here it is Daniel Chong and Ken Hamao on violins, Jessica Bodner on viola and Kee-Hyun Kim on cello. The album was recorded in November 2018 at Radiostudio DRS in Zürich, with Peter Laenger as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer. The booklet carries an essay by Paul Griffiths.

The Six moments musicaux (2005) are dedicated to Kurtág's son, and most of them last under three minutes. They move from the sharp attack of the opening Invocatio to a lament for the pianist György Sebők and to ...rappel des oiseaux..., an étude played almost entirely in harmonics. The fifteen tiny movements of the Officium breve (1988/89) honour the composer Endre Szervánszky. Canons after Anton Webern pass through the sequence, and it closes on an Arioso interrotto drawn from Szervánszky's own music, a song broken off midway. The Dvořák, composed in Spillville, Iowa, adds a second viola to the string quartet and stands in open, sunlit contrast to Kurtág's compressed gestures.

Reviewers praised the Kurtág above all. In The Strad (2021) Edward Bhesania found the fifteen miniatures of the Officium breve austere and uncompromising. He added that "the performance is fearless yet probingly beautiful." Richard Bratby in Gramophone heard "playing of often astonishing colour, subtlety and dynamic range" and noted the clarity of the Zürich recording. Some critics found the pairing of the two composers an odd one. James Manheim at AllMusic took the opposite view and called the Dvořák one of the best performances available, played without any hurry to get back to the modern repertoire.

CD edition, ECM New Series 2649, first released in October 2021.