Complete String Quartets

Complete String Quartets

composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827; produced by Arthur Johnson; performed by New Budapest String Quartet (Helios), 1 hour 7 mins

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Details

Field of Interest
Classical Music
Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827
Content Type
Music recording
Duration
1 hour 7 mins
Recording Engineer
Tim Handley, fl. 1985
Ensemble
New Budapest String Quartet
Format
Audio
Sub Genre
String Quartet, Scherzo
Label
Helios
Producer
Arthur Johnson
Date Recorded
1989-07-01
Review
The common wisdom in the '70s and '80s was that the three great sets of Beethoven string quartets were those by the Quartetto Italiano, the Alban Berg Quartet, and the Végh Quartet. The Italiano's were said to be the most graceful and beautiful, the Alban Berg's to be the most probing and penetrating, and the Végh's the most sublime and exalted. But as fine as beauty is and as fun as probing is, in Beethoven string quartets, nothing beats sublime and exalted. The Végh's recordings of the Beethoven quartets were occasionally too rhythmically driven or too rhapsodically expressive or too extravagantly dramatic. But they were also almost always inspired and they were always under the control of first violinist Sandor Végh. And while rhapsodically expressive may be too much for Beethoven's early quartets and extravagantly dramatic may not be the best interpretive approach to the middle quartets, a sense of inspiration -- a sense of the breath of the infinite and the eternal -- is exactly what the late quartets need to succeed and that's exactly what the Végh brings to the late quartets. And its late quartets do succeed, succeed through their ineffable emotions, their luminous tone, and their ecstatic interpretations. Maybe the Italiano's early quartets were the best. Maybe the Alban Berg Quartet's middle quartets were the best. But surely the Végh's late quartets are among the greatest recordings of anything ever made. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide
Subject
Classical Music, Music & Performing Arts, Classical, Clásica, Clássica
Keywords and Translated Subjects
Clásica, Clássica

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