sibelius string quartets gramophone review

I appreciated the sheer beauty of the playing, on well-matched Stradivarius instruments, much more I missed the vigour and drama of the Quartetto Italiano much less and was far less troubled by the paucity of repeats. In fact, I warmed to the performances on this second disc much more than I did to those on the first. The performance of Quartet No.18, K464, which opens the second CD starts well and the performance overall does much to make up for the shortcomings of the end of the first CD. After a rather gemütlich account of the first three movement, the finale scurries just a little too much. The performance of Quartet No.23, K590, which rounds off the first CD does much to make amends with extremely refined playing, but here, too, the Quartetto Italiano find greater depth. The Italians also add weight to their performance by including repeats which the American players ignore - the omissions are the price which has to be paid for what appears to be the extreme generosity of offering 14 Quartets on three CDs. It's not a matter of tempo: the Americans' opening movement is actually slightly faster than my benchmark performance by the Quartetto Italiano, yet the Italian players have the momentum which the Americans lack. I felt that they didn't do quite enough so suggest the ways in which Beethoven was trying to out-Haydn Haydn, an ambition which Avshalomov suggests also underlies the finale of the 'Hunt' Quartet and which I don't find quite sufficiently conveyed in the performance it's all just a little too laid back. By a strange coincidence, Avshalomov uses the very expression that I had used to indicate my slight reservations about the Wihan's Beethoven. Oddly enough, I recently said much the same about another multi-CD Nimbus chamber music set, the Wihan Quartet's recordings of Beethoven's Early Quartets (Op.18) on NI6105 - see review. Daniel Avshalomov's note suggesting that this is the most approachable of Mozart's quartets - 'we know how we'll feel going on to play the work' - puts its finger on the problem: their Hunt is just a little too predictable. The American Quartet's hunt is a rather genteel affair, more like a canter through some beautiful countryside than a rousing hunt. Therein lies my slight reservation about these performances: whilst the two earlier works which open the first CD receive almost ideal performances, works such as K458 don't need quite so much tenderness - indeed, they benefit from a slightly tougher approach than they receive here. If, for example, No.17, the 'Hunt' Quartet, K458 steals the show on the first disc, it isn't due to the advocacy of the players, who perform the earlier works with just the same loving care. If you are looking for a beautifully recorded set of Mozart string quartets played with an almost absolute absence of flaws or intrusive 'interpretation' then these recordings by the American Quartet will be right up your street.Īs on the earlier set, each CD combines early and later works the range is even greater here than before, from the apprentice piece, K80, written in 1770 and revised a few years later, to K590, the third of the 'Prussian' Quartets and his last Quartet (1789). Dominy Clements gave a warm welcome to that first volume just over a year ago - see review - and I find myself very much in agreement with what he said then: This well-filled second volume, containing 14 quartets, completes the 6-CD set of all Mozart's 23 String Quartets. Nimbus have already released the American Quartet's performances of nine of the Mozart String Quartets, originally issued on MusicMasters, on NI2508-10.

String Quartet in C, K465 ('Dissonance') (1785) String Quartet in F, K590 ('Prussian No.3) (1789) String Quartet in B-flat, K458 ('Hunt') (1784)

Sibelius string quartets gramophone review