Esmé Quartet - Beethoven, Bridge & Chin: To Be Loved - WQXR

“The most perfect expression of human behavior,” wrote conductor Jeffrey Tate, “is the string quartet.” Even the most quarrelsome anthropologist would be hard-pressed to argue with him after hearing this extraordinary debut album from the Esmé Quartet. Founded in 2016 by four Korean students at a conservatory in Cologne, Germany, the group explores every aspect of the form’s expressive possibilities in this eclectic program headlined by ParaMetaString, a hair-raising electroacoustic work by their compatriot Unsuk Chin.