Elliott Carter, Isang Yun, Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, Ruth Killius, Thomas Demenga

Lauds and Lamentations gives one disc each to two composers who both wrote an oboe quartet for Heinz Holliger: the American Elliott Carter (born 1908) and the Korean Isang Yun (1917-1995). Carter's Oboe Quartet of 2001 and Yun's Quartet for oboe and string trio of 1994 are late works, set here among solo pieces by both composers. ECM noted that five of the eight Carter pieces and the Yun quartet were first recordings when ECM New Series released the set in 2003.

Holliger plays oboe and, in one piece, English horn, joined by Thomas Zehetmair (violin), Ruth Killius (viola) and Thomas Demenga (cello). The recordings were made in September 2001 and February 2002 at Radio Studio DRS in Zürich, with Manfred Eicher producing and Stephan Schellmann as Tonmeister. The booklet includes a conversation between Carter and Felix Meyer, an essay by Holliger and notes by Philippe Albèra. Several pieces were written for these players: Carter dedicated Figment to Demenga and wrote A 6 Letter Letter for Holliger to play at Paul Sacher's 90th birthday.

Carter's quartet runs through the six duets possible among the four players, folding them into a single span of about sixteen minutes, with an oboe part that stays songful inside the polyphony. Around it come the 4 Lauds for solo violin, among them Statement, subtitled Remembering Aaron, and Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi, and the two Figment pieces for solo cello, the second subtitled Remembering Mr. Ives. The second disc opens with Yun's Piri (1971) for solo oboe, a fifteen-minute test of breath and line. His three-movement quartet, among the last works he completed, opens with a dense, fast movement that grows from a trill figure, and centres on a dark slow movement of held tones and short glissandi.

In The Times, Geoff Brown called it "one of the best releases of contemporary chamber music for some time", and singled out Holliger's breath control in Piri. Andrew Clements in BBC Music Magazine praised the quartet's "buoyant, effortless invention" and said Holliger delivers Piri "with quite astonishing intensity."

Double CD, ECM New Series 1848/49, first released in April 2003.