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In Reply to: RE: Beethoven String Quartets posted by Doktor Brahms on May 09, 2020 at 11:39:28
. . . will have recommended every recording of the Beethoven String Quartets under the sun by the time we're done! ;-)
So I've got an idea: why don't we warn you about recordings of the Beethoven String Quartets which we DON'T like for one reason or another. I'd like to start by warning you off from any recordings by "The Lindsays"! For a while, these folks had quite the cult following, cheered on by the chauvinistic British critics who stumbled all over each other, each one trying to out-superlative the others in describing The Lindsays' recordings. The only trouble for me was, they were often painfully out of tune! Intonation is of course a kind of a threshold thing, and some listeners will put up with intonation which others will find intolerable. All I can say is, I'm one who found The Lindsays intolerable in this respect, although I do acknowledge the rambunctious spirit of their playing.
And as for recordings I like, the Hollywood Quartet's Late Quartets have already been recommended in this thread and are indeed amazing - but their Op. 127 was my imprint recording of that work (when I was a freshman in high school), so maybe I'm biased. I was so happy when Testament reissued their set - it's mono only (outrageous, considering when it was recorded!). When I ripped this set to my hard drive, I divided it up according to the original Capitol releases - it took me years to find all these album covers on the internet in tolerably good reproductions:
As shown in my Apple "Music" (formerly iTunes) application
Moving on to more modern recordings, I like the early digital Smetana Quartet recordings (on Denon) of the Early and Middle Quartets. (They got to be too old by the time they recorded the Late Quartets in digital sound, and the first violinist's intonation and vibrato control suffered, so I'd prefer the much earlier analog-derived Supraphon set of these late works.) I also like the Prazak Quartet, which is only partially in hi-rez MCh unfortunately. I like what I've heard from the Belcea Quartet (only a couple out of the 16). Also the Bartok Quartet, although the engineering is showing its age a bit now. And for a unique experience, the recording by the Auryn Quartet on the Tacet label (in MCh) puts you directly in the middle of the players - I was theoretically against this kind of "gimicky" presentation until I heard it for myself and was completely won over.
Follow Ups:
Chris, on youtube I (tried to) checked out the Auryn and the Belcea; the first was "tried to" inasmuch as Tacet, I s'pose quite reasonably, protects their copyright by allowing only parts of movements. Nevertheless, what I heard was quite attractive, marred by occasional phrasing distractions in, e.g., what's posted of the Mozart K 515. The Belcea I found excellent (and well engineerd) on the Op 59 #2, though the slow movement might have been a bit slower), and they attack the last movement of the Op 59 # 3 with appropriate panache marred only by a bit of phrasing distortion by the 1st violinist. But I thought their Grosse Fugue rather too jaunty with phrase-ends clipped in places, detracting from the "irresistable force" quality of my favorite Quartetto italiano performance.
I tried to investigate the Bartok, but youtube returned only myriad performances of Bartok's quartets (I am not a big fan).
When time permits, on to the Prazak.
Jeremy
Along Happy Kyne and the Mirth Makers, and they could have worked at Happy's Bun 'n' Run as a side gig.
P.S. Speaking of which, did you ever notice that off-key lounge singer Tony Roletti resembles Bill Clinton? And prolly Tony would have been a better president. I doubt he had much success with the ladies.
"Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. "
― W.C. Fields
nt
and that's because there are way too may string players.
The average orchestra has literally DOZENS of violinists, 8-10 violas and and equal number of cellists, ALL of who could wake up one morning with a desire to be part of a string quartet. And there's no one assigned the job of telling them "NO, we have WAY TOO MANY sting quartets!"
Woodwinds? Most orchestra's sport two clarinets max? One oboe and an English horn? Couple bassoons? Couple flutes? No risk of ending up with too many woodwind ensembles. In fact, we could use a few more IMNSHO.
But what we DON'T need is more string quartets deciding to record ALL of Beethoven's string quartets(of which he wrote WAY too many as well but that's another story).
A chum of mine in one of the leading conservatories told me that string quartet players have independent means in order to survive. As he put it "In Germany they're all Von something".
Don't know how true this is?
Although, as I understand it, they are required by law to stop after the 'Late Quartets'.
the rise of the pimply-faced Undead, their massive armies stretching infinitely over the downloading/streaming horizon as far as one can see.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but my life was simpler when gatekeepers at the few major label companies decided who should record and who shouldn't.
n
Ebene Quartet is releasing complete Beethoven quartets as a set of single discs, each named for the city in which the performances were recorded live. I've heard three of the discs. The best performance of the bunch is the Grosse Fuge, which is not only in tune (it isn't always) but extremely clear--I followed it with a score. The downside is that the cellist, a fine player, has an instrument that is more on the hollow baritone side and doesn't have a lot of deep bass resonance.
Some of the performances have unusually fast tempi (e.g., last movement of Raz #3). I find some of the accents underdone, which IMO is not a great way to play Beethoven.
I can't think of a single complete set that I like, but some of my favorite performances are the Julliards's Op. 131 (recorded for RCA), Smetana Qt Op 130 (the first one, which was issued in the US on a Crossroads budget LP and which preceded the Denon), anything that the Hollywood and Busch Quartets did, some of the Alexander Quartet's first set (issued on Arte Nova), and Takacs Qt.
about that one, I'd say I found the last movement fugue relaxed and fluid, at least compared to my favored New Music.
The youtube Ebene's Grosse Fugue is, I think, quite good, but I prefer the Quartetto's for greater weight, propulsiveness, and musical penetration.
Still. for me, a worthwhile expenditure of lockdown time. Thx for the tip.
Jeremy
pbarach, when I turned on my internet radio today, a station I frequent was playing the Ebene's Op 18 # 3; regrettably, I heard the entirety of only the last movement which was played, I thought, with appropriate skill, energy and joy. I think they were a bit let down by their engineer, though, because their sound seemed to me slightly squeezed and metallic, BUT that could be attributable to my "home-office" system which incorporates class d amps, or to the station's broadcasting at 320 K/s, although other string groups have fared better from the same station & equipment.
Sorry that was based on so brief an experience, but I thought you entitled to the update while it is still fresh.
Jeremy
.
I learned my lesson about the Lindsays quite some time ago. Their presence in my collection has been radically pared down--a Tippett CD is about the only thing left, if memory serves. I'm happy for them to stay on their own side of the Atlantic. Other inmates are welcome to disagree, of course.
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