Beethoven in Period Performances

[San Antone]

Narratio Quartet on period instruments.

Listening to the volume of Late Quartets now. They're wonderful! 

[Selig]

Thanks for this, I just listened to op 131 - I can't say I enjoyed it, but there's clearly lots of food for thought there - rhythms especially caught my attention, as well as textures, tempos.

Is the booklet online anywhere?

Yes, with some brief discussion on tempo, vibrato, and portamento:

https://storage.highresaudio.com/2025/04/15/uxm4mq-beethovenl-pdf.pdf

[Mandryka]

Yes, with some brief discussion on tempo, vibrato, and portamento:

https://storage.highresaudio.com/2025/04/15/uxm4mq-beethovenl-pdf.pdf

Thanks.

I'm having a lot of trouble coming to terms with their op 131 variations. On the positive side, the texture is limpid and refined. But the conception seems to me to be lifeless. A dreary, deadly serious, bleak, static, bloodless, joyless dirge. I liked their fugue though, and their penultimate adagio. Generally I hear too much metronome for me.

[Jo498]

Going by the playing times they are slowish in most fast movements and fastish in some slow movements, not the op.131 variations, but 127 and the Cavatina. This might be misleading if there is a lot of tempo variation within movements, of course.

[DaveF]

Narratio Quartet on period instruments.

Just listened to Op.59/1.  Enjoyed the fast movements, without finding anything exceptional in the interpretations - the texture is clear, the sound of the instruments woody and appealing, but the Adagio - Oh dear, the portamenti are so extreme, even between notes only a tone apart, that it sounds more like Xenakis than Beethoven. 

[Selig]

sounds more like Xenakis than Beethoven. 

A rave review in my book 

[Mandryka]

it sounds more like Xenakis than Beethoven. 

I wish

[DaveF]

Ah, the usual suspects...

[DavidW]

I haven't listened to these recordings yet... and I might listen to the Vegh Quartet instead. I don't seem to be much in the mood for experimental music making at the moment.