Das Alban Berg Quartett

[Bulldog]

Compared to the LaSalle, the ABQ take those lightning runs in No.3 much smoother, bolder, and more intense. I simply found the ABQ "tight" and "clean"... perhaps that does translate into "dry", I don't know. Do I dare say Brahms wrote dry SQs?

Again, competition isn't all that... available!, is it?

There's plenty of competition with each string quartet having at least 40 recordings.

[Herman]

I thought the point in Brahms SQs was that they were "difficult" in the "you-have-to-play-them-right-or-they-will-gum-up" way, so that clarifying structure and texture were paramount? I didn't think these SQs were supposed to be Brahms' most "feeling" pieces, that they were supposed to be "serious" additions to the canon, and because they were not Brahms' most appealing works, they were supposed to lack "warmth"?

I was listening to the LaSalle/DG, and, though they had fire and blood and guts, they typical DG chamber sound made everything sound a bit fierce. You certainly can't level any refinement issues against the ABQ.

Compared to the LaSalle, the ABQ take those lightning runs in No.3 much smoother, bolder, and more intense. I simply found the ABQ "tight" and "clean"... perhaps that does translate into "dry", I don't know. Do I dare say Brahms wrote dry SQs?

Again, competition isn't all that... available!, is it? Perhaps the Amadeus works better than LaSalle. What about Melos? Italians? Cleveland? NewBudapest? If the Tokyo did a set, maybe they deliver the requisite warmth? Hmmm...

I seem to recall reading about a British politician with an election slogan "Eat More , Think Less". That's what I often think reading your stream-of-consciousness posts.

That whole theory about Brahms deliberately putting less "feeling" into his string quartets  -  where do you come up with this stuff?

It just so happens that I'm not familiar with the ABQ's Brahms, but for a lot of people the ABQ can sound like it's all too effortless.

The LaSalle somehow doesn't strike me as a natural match with Brahms. The recordings I know sound rather cerebral.

If you're looking for some extra warmth I'd suggest the Quartetto Italiano.

[Mandryka]

The way I would put it is that ABQ makes Quartet 3 sound modern -- I like that a lot.

Listened again to their Dvorak today -- nice performance but -- sorry, don't like the music much.

[snyprrr]

I'm going to shake things up!

oy, now look what you've done!

I seem to have stepped on the BrahmsBurger here! Please let me clarify. Before I heard the Brahms SQs all I knew was their reputation as Brahms' least friendly chamber works...well, that's what I'd heard.

So, when I finally heard them (ABQ), I was shocked at how effortless and pretty they were, and how classically more than romantic orientated they were. And I did see them more as absolute music classical rather than "programmatic" romantic. I found a certain steely, streamlined and gleaming Benz like quality to these works, perhaps more cerebral than "feeling", though they are certainly extremely beautiful. Perhaps when compared to the Clarinet Qnt., they are a bit less blatantly beautiful (you can't have an Indian Summer in the middle of your career!) than that particular masterpiece of autumnal beauty. That's all I meant. I just found these SQs more of a road race compared with the Clarinet Qnt.'s more Sunday driving. There's certainly no LESS Brahms here! There's plenty of epic in these SQs!

I suppose the ABQ could lay it on a little thicker, but their streamlined squeaky clean presentation appeals to me. I'd have to hear the bible version to compare. I can picture the Tokyo playing this lusciously, though.

Is that what I meant to say?

[snyprrr]

After reading the comments in the Brahms Chamber Music Thread, I don't know what I was apologizing for here???

Perhaps the "dry as a bone" was the EMI issue? I didn't even know they haaad redone Brahms for EMI, huh.

[Mandryka]

After reading postings here I compared SQ3 -- ABQ (Teldec), Amadeus and Lasalle.

Amadeus make the quartet sound like the sort of thing Mrs Lopsided would love.

Lasalle don't seem to me to find the right tempo -- it all sounded too breathless.

[Que]

After reading the comments in the Brahms Chamber Music Thread, I don't know what I was apologizing for here???

Absolutely. The Teldec ABQ Brahms quartets are just marvelous.
If you're ever into historical recordings: give the Busch SQ with Brahs' SQ's nos. 1 & 2 a listen.

Q

[snyprrr]

I'm getting extremely frustrated with trying to figure out ABQ's good and bad phases during their EMI tenure.

1) A. I hear that some performances are overly "super", taking away from the music. (i.e. Bartok??)

    B. I hear the studio sound wasn't all that.

2) I hear that any/all of their later period performances during their "live" phase are simply the best.



Trying to decipher the different LvB cycles on Amazon is a headache with this group! Also, I didn't even know they redid their Brahms until last week!

Let me get this straight. They pretty much redid their entire Teldec box, right? And since they didn't do any LvB on Teldec, they did 2 cycles on EMI, right?

LvB 1
LvB 2
Mozart
Schubert
Dvorak
Brahms
Berg
Stravinsky
Debussy
Ravel
Bartok

Lutoslawski
Berio
Rihm
Schnittke
Urbanner
von Einem
Haubenstock-Ramati* (my fav)

Piazzolla
Schwertsik

What am I missing?

They said that they regretted not having recorded Reger and Hindemith!

[Herman]

Last night and this morning I listened to Mozart's 589 and 590 in both ABQ recordings, Teldec and EMI. I had not listened to either recording in a really long time. I used to have the Teldec LP's in the late seventies  -  of Mozart's "Haydn" Quartets that is, as they were first released. I never really got into the ABQ EMI Mozart, somehow.

What struck me yesterday was the Teldec recordings are much slower, they attempt to find intensity in deliberate tempos, and it doesn't always happen for me. The EMI are much more nervously intense  -  in these two quartets; I haven't checked the rest. At this point in time I'd prefer the later recording, though it wouldn't be my favorite recording: they skip too many repeats.

[Mandryka]

Last night and this morning I listened to Mozart's 589 and 590 in both ABQ recordings, Teldec and EMI. I had not listened to either recording in a really long time. I used to have the Teldec LP's in the late seventies  -  of Mozart's "Haydn" Quartets that is, as they were first released. I never really got into the ABQ EMI Mozart, somehow.

What struck me yesterday was the Teldec recordings are much slower, they attempt to find intensity in deliberate tempos, and it doesn't always happen for me. The EMI are much more nervously intense  -  in these two quartets; I haven't checked the rest. At this point in time I'd prefer the later recording, though it wouldn't be my favorite recording: they skip too many repeats.

Interesting -- I compared the Prussian Quartets by ABQ on the Teldec label with the Petersen Quartet recently -- and I prefered ABQ because I liked the way they generated intensity. Though the Petersen are good in their way to.

Unfortunately I don't have the ABQ later set

I love those Prussian Quartets so I'm curious about who you favour -- if I were asked I would have to say the Teldec ABQ.

[DavidW]

I think the tempo in the Teldec recordings are just about right, agree though that the EMI sounds nervous, like a poor man's Juilliard.

[Herman]

Interesting -- I compared the Prussian Quartets by ABQ on the Teldec label with the Petersen Quartet recently -- and I prefered ABQ because I liked the way they generated intensity. Though the Petersen are good in their way to.

Unfortunately I don't have the ABQ later set

I love those Prussian Quartets so I'm curious about who you favour -- if I were asked I would have to say the Teldec ABQ.

Sometime ago I listened to the Petersen cd with the Prussian 3, and I thought it was a perfect interpretation, really top of the heap. This may obviously change; certainly this kind of music is bigger than any single interpretation. I like the Prazak, too, which shapes the music more from the 1st and the cello outwards, rather than from the centre, the way the Petersen does.

And I would never call the ABQ a poor man's Juilliard. I think there's little doubt ABQ has been justly one of the major string quartets in the eighties and nineties; their dominance in the market kind of turned me off (which is why I had never really listened to their EMI Mozart till I hit upon a couple discs in the used bin), but musically and technically their reputation has been deserved.

Perhaps I'll think differently some other time, but right now I felt the Teldec ABQ took too leisurely tempi to do justice to the nervous energy that (IMO) always informs Mozart's music.

[Mandryka]

Perhaps I'll think differently some other time, but right now I felt the Teldec ABQ took too leisurely tempi to do justice to the nervous energy that (IMO) always informs Mozart's music.

I see where you're comming from now!.

For my part, I'm going though a phase whrere I don't like nervous energy -- but as you know, I will change!

Howard.

[snyprrr]

Wow, the library acquired a,... one,...one of the two Beethoven cycles by the ABQ, the Late Quartets, in the old fashioned 2cd box, with the group photo, and the copyrights 1982-84. I neglected to find recording date, but will edit later.



Anyhow, I just think I learned what a lot of you know already: that one of the ABQ Beethoven cycles is marred by the most hallucinatoryly badly recorded?, or mastered?, or whaaat?, I don't know, but the whole recording just plain sounds funny strange, like it's in an elastic bubble, burbling around the waterline.

Please someone help me out here.

The playing appears to be pretty fine underneath it all, but there is also a harsh factor, plainly on the Grosse Fuge, and pretty much wherever vehemence is called for (much in evidence in Op.135). Honestly, I did pretty much skip around, in shock at what Iwas hearing. The opening of Op.127 sounded very foreign,...I don't know, just,... disturbing.

My point is, if I want the GOOD ABQ Beethoven (on Amazon), what does the cover look like, or what am I looking for? Later '80s? '90s? I thought that the bad LvB was the one with the abstract "boring" reddish covers, but those must be the "live" good ones then, huh???

The ones with the faces,...BAD.

Are these bad ones also in different guises, or reissues? I think EMI is trying to confuse us, no?

I know I didn't bother lookng through the thread, but I don't remember us going there before.

Does anyone else find these recordings as disturbing as I do?

[Herman]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the early digital LvB cycle of the ABQ. Some of those late quartets, esp 130 and 131, are among the best modern recordings of those pieces.

The entire cycle can be had for very little money in one of those EMI boxes, and the late quartets have been reissued in three Red Line cd's.

[snyprrr]

ah, the Grail just arrived!: the ABQ's second recording of Alban Berg's two masterpieces for string quartet, on EMI (rec: '91/'92).

So, I've been sitting here for two hours going back and forth between the Teldec and EMI, and I'm kinda jus shrugging my shoulders . Except that the EMI recording is brighter (though, well behaved, and not hard: this is NOT one of those disputed EMI/ABQ "bad" recordings!), and perhaps just a teensy shade more up front (again,... I know the dice game with these EMI/ABQ recordings,...I looove the "live" recordings (this isn't one),... this one was recorded in the same church as the Stravinsky)), I can barely tell much of anything between the performances.

In fact, seconds into each listen I forget what the previous listen sounded like. Perhaps the later/EMI IS just a touch more aggressive (but, this could be the recording), however, the dispersion of "gnarly" cello tones goes both ways. In one section the one recording will reveal something, and then in the other, and so on. It's almost as if there's nothing to choose from, and everything to choose from. Obviously, you MUST have both now! (firmly implanted ).

Yes, perhaps the latter is a touch more trenchant (in the good way). I mean, they obviously already had the measure of the piece, and it doesn't sound like the piece has revealed much more to the fellows (I mean, there IS an end to all things, no?), so, it is like we have a double verification that Yes, this is what it is.

I have never before felt quite this sensation of something truly, firmly, being "in the Box", so to speak,... wrapped up, done, This Is It. I already thought the Teldec was the best Berg on the market, and this newer ABQ is simply a double firewall against any on-commers, like the Jackie Chan whaaap! Bang!! of interpretations! Hiiii-ya!!

EMI's close, and successful, recording does offer a few nice moments of just string sound, as two instruments stretch out on a chord, for instance.

Wow, I am overwhelmed here! It's like looking at a sculpture from different angles, the visual analogy is that strong (and the fact that it's not Beethoven we're talking about). Verrry expensive on line.

Cheers!

[Josquin des Prez]

How many recordings do they have on Teldec? I have their Mozart and Brahms, both of which are among the best string quartet playing i ever heard. Surely, they must have made other recordings, right?

[david-jw]

Snyprrr

this live recording is generally regarded to be the best ABQ for the late Beethoven quartets:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Late-String-Quartets-Alban-Quartett/dp/B000A5ESPI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1283419849&sr=1-5

I like it in that it is quite a different take from most late quartet recordings- tempi are generally quite a bit faster, the playing is very dramatic and intense, and so it can have the effect of hearing the works for the first time again, (the performances can sound "foreign" as you say).

Their Grosse Fugue is magnificent and the 130 as a whole very strong. Not sure they reach the emotional depths that some other quartets have in 132,131, 135, especially the Vegh and the Busch.

[snyprrr]

How many recordings do they have on Teldec? I have their Mozart and Brahms, both of which are among the best string quartet playing i ever heard. Surely, they must have made other recordings, right?

There is a Teldec Box, which has everything (8 cds; pretty cheap). Probably my single favorite purchase!

[snyprrr]

Snyprrr

this live recording is generally regarded to be the best ABQ for the late Beethoven quartets:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Late-String-Quartets-Alban-Quartett/dp/B000A5ESPI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1283419849&sr=1-5

I like it in that it is quite a different take from most late quartet recordings- tempi are generally quite a bit faster, the playing is very dramatic and intense, and so it can have the effect of hearing the works for the first time again, (the performances can sound "foreign" as you say).

Their Grosse Fugue is magnificent and the 130 as a whole very strong. Not sure they reach the emotional depths that some other quartets have in 132,131, 135, especially the Vegh and the Busch.

ok, so that IS the "live" version? You know we've had debate here as to which version is which. I did hear that the "live" one was the one to get.

It's all about the confusing covers,haha. I'll look for that particular cover. thanks