Beethoven late quartets - recommendations?

I did! (post#5)

 

Alright, you get your £5

 

I have considered the Amadeus seriously too. The solution may be their complete set as well as The Italians for the late quartets?

 

Strange bunch, aren't they.

I don't think there's really all that much you can do with respect to the wildness of the late quartets to be honest - the Alban Berg definitely have their moments of expressive vehemence, but I'd suggest that the wildness mostly comes from the music rather than the performance. The Italiano are generally pretty mellow tone-wise if that's what you're after.

To be honest though I can't usually proffer much useful advice with respect to "the best" recorded version of something, simply because I tend to find one I'm happy with and then move on. I've never really been one for searching out dozens of versions of the same work for comparison - I'd nearly always buy a recording of something I don't already know (plenty to choose from there ) by preference. In the case of the Beethoven quartets, besides the Alban Berg and Takacs mentioned already, I've heard most of the Medici set on Nimbus (not great - routine interpretation and technically ropey), a few things from the Emerson set on DG (extremely well played technically, arguably lacking interpretative attention to detail), and various other bits and pieces on the radio, but to be honest I haven't exactly conducted in-depth comparisons even of all of these, never mind of however many other versions there are out there.

 

Well, since you and Alan united and declared war, we will way for you bombardes in hand (double sense meant). :MILD:

 

Ach Freunde - nicht auf diese Tone!

Seriously, all I ever wanted was somewhere where romantic and modern music could get some attention. There is nothing wrong with you chaps discussing your harpsichords and virginals and whatnots on the "Records recently heard" thread, but the healthy rate of your discussion meant that any post on later music tended to be swamped and disappear from view before anyone with similar tastes saw it and responded.... so I thought another seperate thread for later music would remedy that. But I'm sure you agree the discussion my new thread engendered was worthwhile?

Anyway.... Beethoven Quartets.... shame no-one else has heard the Prazak quartet, they really are good in opp.74 and 95. I will probably give their other recordings a try.

I've got the Italiano in the middle quartets - I really like their relaxed mellowness and warmth, very enjoyable. But I've got the Lindsays in the late quartets, both the late 70's recordings and one disc of their more recent recording (on SACD) and I find them very hard work and not very sympathetic. I think the Italian Qt may be the answer.

Am now watching a couple of vinyl sets of the complete LvB quartets by the Italiano on ebay....

 

Thanks, I decide for The Italians.
I have heard The Italians once in Copenhagen live - long time ago - playing Beethoven (one of the op. 18's if I remember correctly), and Schubert and Dvorak, and I was indeed taken by their warm sound, as opposed to the steely sound of some other quartets.

 

Maybe I am early music buff, but I often listen to other music too. And of course we all ought to make this board as all-round as possible.

 

r3 have just played:

Third movement from String Quartet, Op 132, in Am
Quartetto Italiano

though only on the Roberts at work it was rather wonderful, got the Berg at home - must give them another listen - but this was good

 

There are three sets I really admire

the sixties Juilliard Quartet (all quartets in a single slipcase, not the seventies recording on CBS Masterworks)

the sixties Amadeus Quartet

and the Italiano.

I have to add that I am not a late quartet fetishist. In many ways I think the middle quartets are musically just as satisfying. There's just a kind of mystique around the late quartets. People are always patting themselves on the shoulder for listening to the late quartets, but I like the Op 59 and the Harp quartet just as much.

The funny thing, too, is, virtually all ensembles are great in the Op 59 pieces, but they falter in the late quartets. This is the case IMO with the much lauded Takacs. I thought their late quartets were a distinct let-down.

 

In that case we will not way Bombardes in hand, rather Spitzflöten in hand; the emphasis here, of course is in Flöten, not in Spitz


TO THE VERY FEW ONES WHO DO NOT KNOW ORGAN LINGO:
___________________________________________________

Bombarde is, at the same time, a gun and the organ Trombone, very dark, strong and fierce; ths Spitzflöte (literally, pointed flute) is a gentle and very beautiful flute stop, breathy yet subdued.

 

Herman, Thank you for your recommendations, which confirm the others (PeteH, RdS) words, that I should acquire the Italians as a first choice. Maybe the problem is greatest with the "mad" quartets, but it is precisely the "mad" quartets, I want to get to know better.

Nice to see you here again after almost a year, you have been missed.

 

Can I put in a vote for the Busch Quartet's version of the late quartets? Mono recordings from the 1940s which provide an accessible insight into these pieces.

I also have the Juillard Quartet's version on CBS Masterworks, but this has never really 'worked' for me.

 

Stop me if this sounds a bit weird - but in a funny kind of a way I think the restricted sound quality of the Busch versions almost adds to them, sort of. It's scratchy and oppressively close, to be sure, but I wonder if an immaculate modern recording would actually have diminished the amazing sense of intimacy - privacy, even - that makes listening to those recordings feel like some kind of intrusion.

 

I think you have a point. 'Less is more' often holds true; for example to my ears the scratchy recordings of Robert Johnson have far more emotional impact than the pompous overblown 'covers' of his work by Led Zep etc.

 

Yes, it is weird - in point of fact it is sophistry.

I would recommend that you actually attend some chamber music concerts.

 

I agree with much of this - the Amadeus have received unjust criticism, but bear repeated listening, as do the Juilliard.

I've always found the Italiano quartet too bland - they do not take enough risks, and sacrifice texture for homogeneity. (The same, I think, applies to their Mozart).

I always seem to return to the Vegh, but one set that has interested me is by a young Irish quartet, the Vanbrugh.

 

There was a fellow, from Diapason, André Tubeuf, who would agree with you. He was an old recording maniac, and was the reviewer of most Beethoven works (including the Bush records you mentioned). He used to say that recordings of the old days actually sounded better than the modern ones. ‘What is so important about old recordings? Le son (the sound)’. I remember quite clearly I was completely fed up with both that kind of talk and his reviews - for instance: ‘in Arrau’s Beethoven one could argue that the forest may be obscured by the tree; but with Arrau the leaf itself is a world’ – well, someone that talks like that is playing with words and not speaking about music.

What I mean is, I think he was the ultimate snob, a kind of snob one can only find in the Paris ‘salons’ where all the silly people want to hold ‘original’ opinions (only shared by the whole group, of course). (by the way, it is THE place to use ‘Bluffing your way through Philosophy’: I actually did it and the result was marvellous!).

Now I am most definitely not calling you a snob. What I am trying to say is that one can like the very focused and closely miked old recordings because sound is, in fact, somewhat more present, more intense. For instance, Casal's Bach cello suites have that very quality; and some of the older recordings by Walcha too (the awesome Partita Sei gegrüsset). There is also another thing. Some players of the mono era were, indeed, more intense, more relentless, more 'into music' (this is by no means general, but I believe it is true about the Busch).

But Tantris is right: listen to live music. If the musicians want rough sound they can make it (with strings almost everything is possible). So perhaps you like the Busch because there is a concentrated nature about their playing which is conveyed by bad recording technique and a raw sound and probably not by the musicians themselves.

I have been subject to the very same phenomenon with very old recordings of organ music. When I managed to listen to the same instrument live, I would be amazed, because it sounded so different (on the same stops).

That is why the sound engineer is so important: he may actually change what the musicians wanted to convey.

Anyway, this is an interesting subject: how performances can be enhanced or destroyed by the engineers.

 

Of course there is an important point in this view, but some of the explanation seems for me to be, that many of these organs have been restored in the meantime, making them sound completely different, e.g. the Schnitger organ or the Erasmus Bielefeldt organ - both in Stade. Or the Schnitger organ in Sct. Jacobi, Hamburg. The same can be said about the Naumburg organ. Not that I have heard these organs live, but much of the different sound shines through in old and new recordings of these organs and many others.

 

Dear Pe-Zulu: Yes, in the case of organs that is quite often true. But the Laurenskerk Franz Caspar Schnitger is a very good example of what I said before. It was, of course, restored and, what is more, there were changes to the church which made it more reverberant. But even if you compare the Walcha recordings with those of Saorgin, in the same organ at about the same time, you will notice the difference. Walcha was very close miked, whereas Saorgin was taken from rather far away. You still recognize the sound (indeed, in many cases you do recognize certain stops even today, such as the marvellous Posaune 16), but Walcha'splaying seems much more intense (well, it is, really) partly because of the closeness of the sound.

But in modern recordings there is often 'more space between the notes', I mean, the sound is not so compact. This shows particularly well in Walter Kraft's Buxtehude, or Walcha's Cappel Bach, where the tutti sometimes overloads the resolution of the microphones (or whatever). This makes for a more 'dense' sound, which can, indeed, seem more intense.

P.S.: I edited my previous comment because it was rambling and did not seem to lead anywhere. It still does not, but at least one understands why I mentioned André Tubeuf.