Beethoven's String Quartets

[david-jw]

Agree the Yale set is a treasure.

Re the Quartetto Italiano, I have never found them to lack emotion in late Beethoven- rather that the emotional intensity is expressed through their exceptional rigor and seriousness, something that I find gives these mysterious works an appropriately remote quality in that you have to go to them.

[Reverend Bong]

Another evening of late quartettage because the Vegh have arrived.  Very very nice indeed, what a smooth and effortless presentation, and what unity of sound and purpose.  Slow, but absolutely riveting, and a truly beautiful tone.  They are certainly up in the Vicarage pantheon now (ho ho) along with Busch, Smetana, Yale, Vanbrugh and Italian.

Also in the naughty corner are the Alban Berg, I don't know if the digital transfer fixes the problem, I would think it's in the recording, but the Teldec DMM LPs are really ruined for me by the echoey acoustics. Plus they don't seem to be getting to the depths.  Disappointing. 

I'm surprised there has been no mention from anyone else of the Vanbrugh Quartet, one of my few DDD sets.  I'd need to do some more careful listening before offering a comparative description in any detail, but they are undoubtedly up with some of the greats.  Do they have any other fans or am out on a limb with this set?  Another question:  I only have the Hungarian Quartet's later, stereo cycle, but I see there are many fans of the 1950s mono on the forum: it tends to be specifically mentioned by many posters.  Is it very different from the stereo?

[George]

Another evening of late quartettage because the Vegh have arrived.  Very very nice indeed, what a smooth and effortless presentation, and what unity of sound and purpose.  Slow, but absolutely riveting, and a truly beautiful tone.  They are certainly up in the Vicarage pantheon now (ho ho) along with Busch, Smetana, Yale, Vanbrugh and Italian.

Stereo or mono?

[Reverend Bong]

Stereo or mono?

1974 stereo on Telefunken. I only listened to Op.s 130 and 131 last night, I'm looking forward to the rest.  I know pretty much everyone here is digital, but these are exemplary records if there is anyone else who cares.  Does anyone else here listen to vinyl?

[david-jw]

The 52 Vegh mono is a fine set imo.

Despite a slightly boomy bottom end on the recording, the CD transfers are pretty good (but the original Lps may be better in this regard?)

The op 132 is magnificent.

Overall imo this set has all the qualities that rightly make their 1970s set so well regarded, but is tauter.

Well worth getting.

[George]

Re: Vegh Mono - holy cow!! Look at these prices!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Complete-Quartets-Society-Recordings/dp/B00005NG65/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1354022803&sr=8-2&keywords=Vegh+Beethoven

[Karl Henning]

Hey, maybe there's someone will actually pay that, d'you think?

[david-jw]

Vegh mono doesnt usually cost that much 

I think its just a case of amazon market place scalpers putting the price up whilst Amazon is out of stock.

I hope it isnt oop

[Karl Henning]

I hope it isnt oop

Well, sure. But what if it were?  Beethoven's legacy is secure, even without that particular recording.

[david-jw]

Well, sure. But what if it were?  Beethoven's legacy is secure, even without that particular recording.

[petrarch]

Well, sure. But what if it were?  Beethoven's legacy is secure, even without that particular recording.

It wouldn't be about Beethoven, but about the particular recording. Sometimes specific pressings command a substantial price, since they may have better sound than others.

[Mandryka]

Tell me, in Op 130, do you think it works with the Big Fugue at the end? The reason I ask is that I've been playing an early Juilliard Quartet recording (1963, LP only AFAIK)  with the revised finale and I really like it like that -- it seems to balance so much better. You don't have this enormous monster stuck on the end of all the good humoured parody and comedy you find in the previous five movements.

Anyway, if you like the Big Fugue, which records seem to make the best job using it, not just in terms of playing the fugue, but in terms of making the whole quartet work as a single coherent entity with the fugue?

And anyway  do I have the best view of the previous five movements? Or is a heavier, more serious approach better at making sense of the thing with the fugue at the end?

[Todd]

Finished my first listen.  Superbly clean, pretty close sound, with extremely wide dynamic range.  Ms Belcea's violin sounds edgy at times, but playing throughout is superb, with oodles of fine detail, including fine delineation between first and second violin.  Op 95 is a scorcher.  127 pops.  The Op 18 works are quite fine, though the slow movements can be a bit too serious.  59/3 also seems a bit too heavy at times, and 131 is not the last word in depth.  Don't get me wrong, the set is excellent, and I will get the second volume, it just doesn't challenge the Vegh, Budapest, or Prazak recordings in my collection.

[petrarch]

Finished my first listen.  Superbly clean, pretty close sound, with extremely wide dynamic range.  Ms Belcea's violin sounds edgy at times, but playing throughout is superb, with oodles of fine detail, including fine delineation between first and second violin.  Op 95 is a scorcher.  127 pops.  The Op 18 works are quite fine, though the slow movements can be a bit too serious.  59/3 also seems a bit too heavy at times, and 131 is not the last word in depth.  Don't get me wrong, the set is excellent, and I will get the second volume, it just doesn't challenge the Vegh, Budapest, or Prazak recordings in my collection.

Thanks for the report. I didn't have a chance to explore it in more depth, but your positive review nails it for me. I will be picking this up in the next few days.

[Reverend Bong]

Most discussion of the Vegh seems to be about the mono, I just wanted to add another word about the stereo Telefunken set after listening to Op 127 last night.  These are really special recordings, quite unlike the others in my collection and certainly in the very top rank.  I mentioned the perfect unanimity of purpose before, this strikes me constantly, at almost every phrase.  It's as though a single mind is playing all 4 parts.  The perfectly matched tones of the instruments contributes, but I can't help thinking this could only have been recorded by people who'd been playing together for a long long time.  There is also a gentleness to the playing, that complements the very beautiful tone, and combines with the slow tempi to bring out an inner beauty in the quartets that others have not revealed to me.  They seem to glow from within.  I'm reminded of Schneiderhan who alone of violinists seems to have found the perfect serenity hiding in the violin concerto.  I must do a very close comparison with the Italian Quartet, there is something similar here, but it's not clear to me yet.  These are matters of great subtlety.  I feel as though an extremely important message in an alien tongue had been presented to me and I could almost, not quite, understand it.

[david-jw]

Most discussion of the Vegh seems to be about the mono, I just wanted to add another word about the stereo Telefunken set after listening to Op 127 last night.  These are really special recordings, quite unlike the others in my collection and certainly in the very top rank.  I mentioned the perfect unanimity of purpose before, this strikes me constantly, at almost every phrase.  It's as though a single mind is playing all 4 parts.  The perfectly matched tones of the instruments contributes, but I can't help thinking this could only have been recorded by people who'd been playing together for a long long time.  There is also a gentleness to the playing, that complements the very beautiful tone, and combines with the slow tempi to bring out an inner beauty in the quartets that others have not revealed to me.  They seem to glow from within.  I'm reminded of Schneiderhan who alone of violinists seems to have found the perfect serenity hiding in the violin concerto.  I must do a very close comparison with the Italian Quartet, there is something similar here, but it's not clear to me yet.  These are matters of great subtlety.  I feel as though an extremely important message in an alien tongue had been presented to me and I could almost, not quite, understand it.

I really get your comment about it seeming as though a single mind playing all four parts.

That is exactly what has always impressed me about the Hollywood Quartet's great recordings, and I found myself thinking about their performances in exactly the same terms as you have described here.



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[mszczuj]

It's as though a single mind is playing all 4 parts. 

This is exactly the way I don't want Beethoven to be played.

[Reverend Bong]

I really get your comment about it seeming as though a single mind playing all four parts.

That is exactly what has always impressed me about the Hollywood Quartet's great recordings, and I found myself thinking about their performances in exactly the same terms as you have described here.

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yes, i noted your comments about the Hollywood earlier in the thread with interest.  I've got them on my ever-growing shopping list, in the hope that I can find them for a reasonable price, but they're fairly steep at the moment.  You seemed to have quite a collection, as I recall.  How do you feel about the Juilliard, not just in regard to the late quartets but the earlier ones as well?  I've been considering a box set of them that I've seen.  I have a lot of recordings of the late, and hardly any middle, and I think no early quartets at all, shockingly.  I narrowly missed a box set of the Italians doing them all this morning.  In general, who would you recommend for early and middle?

[Gurn Blanston]

This is exactly the way I don't want Beethoven to be played.

Thank you. Or any other composer for that matter. It may sound like an impressive feat; hell, it may BE an impressive feat, but the conversational aspect which is the heart and soul of quartet playing goes wanting when there is no one going his own way.

[Reverend Bong]

Thank you. Or any other composer for that matter. It may sound like an impressive feat; hell, it may BE an impressive feat, but the conversational aspect which is the heart and soul of quartet playing goes wanting when there is no one going his own way.

Yes, you're both right of course, and there are plenty of recordings that exhibit that conversational, even adversarial, quality, but there is something compelling about this unanimity. I think this is the very thing that gives it a strange message-like quality. Rather than an exchange among themselves, the four parts are all speaking with one voice to the listener, but what it is they are saying is something hard to penetrate.