Beethoven's String Quartets

Started by marvinbrown, July 14, 2007, 02:29:06 PM

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George

"I can't live without music, because music is life." - Yvonne Lefébure

jlaurson

Quote from: Octave on October 03, 2013, 01:01:20 PM
Quote from: Opus106 on October 03, 2013, 07:46:24 AM
Naïve seems to be answering a few prayers this year.

At bargain price:



[Click on image to go to Presto's page.]
BOOYAKASHA
+1!

Finally I can recommend that set again, without feeling like an (it's-so-rare-but-i-have-it-it's-therefore-special) ass!!!

marvinbrown

Quote from: Opus106 on October 03, 2013, 07:45:38 AM
Naïve seems to be answering a few prayers this year.

At bargain price:



[Click on image to go to Presto's page.]

  Thank you Opus106  8) for posting this! I just pre-ordered it! I have heard so much about this set and until now it was unavailable.  At that price I just could not say NO!

  marvin

 

Peregrine

Amazon UK are now selling the set for under 20 quid ...
Yes, we have no bananas

George

Quote from: marvinbrown on October 30, 2013, 08:06:19 AM
  Thank you Opus106  8) for posting this! I just pre-ordered it! I have heard so much about this set and until now it was unavailable.  At that price I just could not say NO!

  marvin



Nor should you!!  ;D
"I can't live without music, because music is life." - Yvonne Lefébure

david-jw

Did anyone else hear The Danish Quartet's Op 132 on BBC Radio 3 yesterday?

Very revealing performance imo- not available commercially alas, but worth catching on iplayer.

Its in the New Generation Artists programme that was broadcast yesterday 31th dec, 17.45-19.00

A quartet to watch out for in the future based on this performance I would think.

amw

I may have asked this question before, but don't remember the answer.

A long time ago I saw a paper examining the historical performance practice of Beethoven's late quartets with one of the figures being a chart of the timings in the Heiliger Dankgesang from Op. 132. I remember that while the average timings were in the 15-18 minute range there was one recording (explicitly described as an outlier) which took something insane, like 22 minutes... but don't remember which recording that was. I thought it was Quartetto Italiano for a while but on doing some research it seems that theirs, while indeed slow, is part of a clear tradition of very slow Heiliger Dankgesangs dating back to the Busch Quartet (who are even slower than QI) if not earlier, and not exceptionally long by those standards. If anyone does know, ideas would be appreciated.

I also remember that there was a really fast Heiliger Dankgesang as another outlier, 12 minutes or so. I think that's the Leipzig Quartet on MDG but not 100% certain.

Jo498

I do not know any above 20 minutes. The Busch is around 19, IIRC, and the (2nd) Guarneri in the same range. The slowest I find in my collection is Melos/DG with 18:01 and the fastest Petersen with ca. 14:50. So no extreme outliers here. (I believe the differences are mostly due to the pace of the chorale sections)
But I can confirm the uncommonly fluent tempo of the Leipzig Quartet which I heard in concert 8 or 10 years ago and I later checked the playing time which is 12-13 min.

While I like slow interpretations I am pretty sure that the faster tempo is closer to what Beethoven probably intended. My indication are the rather fast metronome markings for two similar movements, viz. the adagios from op.59/2 and the 9th symphony. The former is frequently played roughly in the indicated tempo (quarter=60), the latter usually much slower, although Norrington, Gielen and others have conducted the beginning close to the prescribed tempo.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

amw

Yes, Beethoven does not seem to have been a fan of especially slow tempos. The adagio from the Hammerklavier for instance is marked eighth=92 which would yield a speed of about 13-14 minutes, but like the rest of the metronome markings in the sonata, pianists typically ignore it altogether (Michael Korstick, who otherwise tried to follow Beethoven's markings, argued that Beethoven made an error in judgment in marking the adagio at such a fast tempo, attributing it to his encroaching deafness and the shorter sustain of contemporary pianos; although I think it's safe to say that whatever Beethoven's intentions may have been, the 29 minute Adagio Korstick delivered is probably not it).

I sort of disagree with Beethoven in that regard, with my favourite Heiliger Dankgesang so far being the Belcea Quartet's (19:35) whose hushed atmosphere and reduced vibrato in the chorale sections allows them to build up a tremendous tension, but I can also see the appeal of a more flowing tempo as practiced by the Leipzigers. (I don't have their recording though. My alternatives are all relatively conventional—Juilliard 17:45, Vegh 16:20, Hagen 15:35, Lindsay 15:10) Mostly I'm just really curious to hear how someone could justify dragging the movement out for 20+ minutes.

Jo498

Of course we can try what we want and what we like. But I always found reasoning a la Korstick puzzling: Why should Beethoven be right with his metronome in the (sometimes insanely fast) fast movements, but wrong in the slow movements?
(This is already puzzling in the more traditional interpretations of Beethoven's symphonies: In most scherzi and some finales (e.g. 5th and 7th) Beethoven's tempo indications are easily met, sometimes the movements are played even faster, whereas in the first movement of the Eroica or most slow movements we are at 2/3 of the indicated speed or so. If Beethoven was hearing it "too fast in his head" why only some movements and not all of them?)

The faster decay of contemporary pianos is just a fact that speaks for more flowing tempi, doesn't it?
I find Korstick really absurdly slow in the op.106 adagio. There are some fast readings, e.g. Gulda with 13:xx min. Gulda may be too "cool" here, but this is not mainly a question of tempo (there are others, but I forgot which pianists: maybe Egon Petri? Riezler claims in his book on Beethoven that he had heard Busoni play the movement in the indicated flowing tempo, so this would fit).
In any case, Korstick is as far or further from the usual tempo of this movement (16-19 min, I'd say) than this typical tempo from the metronomic one.

I have not heard the Belcea; trying to restrict myself to one recording of the quartets per annum, I already bought the Vegh reissue (whose 132 I have not heard yet) in January...
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

George

Quote from: amw on September 01, 2014, 12:11:37 AM
Mostly I'm just really curious to hear how someone could justify dragging the movement out for 20+ minutes.

I read once that that movement was the equivalent of pedaling a bicycle as slowly as you can without falling over.  ;D
"I can't live without music, because music is life." - Yvonne Lefébure

Pat B

Quote from: amw on August 31, 2014, 10:47:38 PM
I may have asked this question before, but don't remember the answer.

You have asked before, but I never saw any answer (and I'm curious about it too). When I first read the question, I thought the answer was the Fitzwilliam Q, but it turns out their time is 18:52. So, I'm not of any help here, except maybe to say that the Fitzwilliam recording is excellent, but I haven't heard most of the ones you have. My list for op.132 is Talich 1970s, Vegh 1970s, Endellion, Emerson, Yale, and Fitzwilliam.

Brian

Quote from: amw on September 01, 2014, 12:11:37 AMMichael Korstick, who otherwise tried to follow Beethoven's markings, argued that Beethoven made an error in judgment in marking the adagio at such a fast tempo, attributing it to his encroaching deafness and the shorter sustain of contemporary pianos
I don't think I understand Korstick's argument that Beethoven made an error in judgment by writing the sonata for a different kind of piano.

Brian

Also clocking in at 19:30ish: Wihan Quartet, Guarneri Quartet (RCA), Alban Berg Quartet (EMI)

That's all I got from a quick, and not at all comprehensive, sweep of Naxos Music Library. It's too bad there's not a comprehensive discography with track timings out there, like the Anton Bruckner Society maintains for all his symphonies.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: Brian on September 01, 2014, 11:35:43 AM
Also clocking in at 19:30ish: Wihan Quartet, Guarneri Quartet (RCA), Alban Berg Quartet (EMI)

This must be the live version. I've got the studio ABQ and it's a rather brisk 15:03.
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

amw

Quote from: Jo498 on September 01, 2014, 12:44:49 AM
Of course we can try what we want and what we like. But I always found reasoning a la Korstick puzzling: Why should Beethoven be right with his metronome in the (sometimes insanely fast) fast movements, but wrong in the slow movements?
I'm not sure. I think he went into more detail, saying the metronome marking was too fast for the tempo marking Adagio sostenuto, but we know that adagios didn't start getting really slow until the time of Wagner. So essentially he's trying to impose mid- to late-19th-century performance practice on an early-19th-century work using a 21st-century piano. I suppose one has to just cast authenticity aside and figure out whether one likes the results.

(I was more surprised to find that Korstick is, actually, not as much of an outlier as he seems. Christoph Eschenbach takes 25:17 in the same movement, and other 20+ minute Adagios are supplied by Barenboim [twice], Solomon, Chodos, Kuerti, Oppitz & Segall among others. 13 minute Adagios, on the other hand, seem quite rare, only Gulda, Yudina and Lim that I'm aware of)

Quote from: Pat B on September 01, 2014, 09:15:03 AM
You have asked before, but I never saw any answer (and I'm curious about it too). When I first read the question, I thought the answer was the Fitzwilliam Q, but it turns out their time is 18:52. So, I'm not of any help here, except maybe to say that the Fitzwilliam recording is excellent, but I haven't heard most of the ones you have. My list for op.132 is Talich 1970s, Vegh 1970s, Endellion, Emerson, Yale, and Fitzwilliam.
I might be totally wrong here. I found timings for 44 versions of Op. 132 online, with the Heiliger Dankgesang ranging from 12:53 (Leipzig) to 19:49 (Alexander)... nothing exceeding 20 minutes. Still lost; I'll try to find my photocopy of the article buried among my massive amount of stuff but that might have to wait until it's been unpacked. (a lot of things are still in boxes)

(I did find a pretty good period instruments recording of Op. 132 though, by the Quatuor Terpsycordes... apart from Op. 135 by the Eroicas I think this might be the first time one of the late quartets has been recorded on a PI setup.)

Pat B

Quote from: amw on September 01, 2014, 01:52:59 PM
(I did find a pretty good period instruments recording of Op. 132 though, by the Quatuor Terpsycordes... apart from Op. 135 by the Eroicas I think this might be the first time one of the late quartets has been recorded on a PI setup.)

Nice find! I added that to my survey of PI recordings of Beethoven quartets. I wish they had coupled it with one of the other underserved (on PI) Beethoven quartets, but maybe they haven't worked those out yet. Anyway, I like PI and op.132 enough that I'll probably pick disc this up.

Brian

Quote from: Velimir on September 01, 2014, 12:23:48 PM
This must be the live version. I've got the studio ABQ and it's a rather brisk 15:03.
Oops! You're right. Double-checked; I meant the Busch Quartet (also EMI Great Recordings).

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Peter Power Pop

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on July 15, 2007, 06:06:28 AM
I don't see how you can beat the Alban Berg if you are a beginner. You get a brand new set for about $25. You should be laughing all the way to the bank at that price. All the other sets are more expensive, often at 2x the cost.

I agree completely. Of the four sets I've heard (Alban Berg, Quartetto Italiano, Tokyo, Végh), the Alban Berg is the one I ended up buying. I'm mighty pleased with it.