Includes work(s) for piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. Soloist: Alfred Brendel.

BEETHOVEN Triple Concerto . Piano Trio in B?, op. 97, “Archduke” • Storioni Tr; Jan Willem de Vriend, cond; Netherlands SO • CHALLENGE 72579 (SACD: 71:15)


It’s a good thing I fell in love with this CD before I read about it. I deliberately left the notes for later, like a self-sequestered judge. This has been my year for the Triple Concerto , and I have reviewed CDs of it from The Knights and the Claremont Trio, not to mention rehearing a legendary one from Karajan and company. But nothing has gotten under my skin so much as this vital, beautifully balanced and executed performance. It represents one gloriously weighted, pulse-racing leap through the loudspeakers and has a remarkable ability to keep your attention. The recorded sound is natural and spacious, in the nice unforced way one so often encounters now with SACD.


Still, I burst out laughing, when I first read about the musicians. What a can of worms Roger Norrington and his movement have surely opened! Here we find a Barenreiter-influenced interpretation, but from an absolutely enormous orchestra. The instruments are modern, with steel strings, except for the brasses, which are early instruments. The Storioni Trio play on gut strings, but use considerable vibrato, and to confuse things further, feature the fortepiano.


In other words, this should be some sort of ghastly artistic hodgepodge. Somehow it isn’t. The fortepiano, once you get used to its damped sonority, works well. Still, at times it sounds like a harp made of tin cans. And when the finale’s cadenza hits a powerful series of low-octave trills, you might be convinced there were three harpsichords gone mad in a coat closet. But the gut strings, I find, sound a touch sweeter than steel ones. It would have been nice to hear the whole orchestra strung with them. And both performances are actually lovely, once you get past the “what the hell is that!?” of hearing the fortepiano. The notes, once I read them, were informative and fortunately not pretentious. Nothing is more annoying in music than a theory in love with itself!


FANFARE: Steven Kruger

In this new Chaconne release, Trio Goya offers unique accounts of Beethoven’s early piano trios, revealing on period instruments and in the magical acoustic of the Britten-Pears Auditorium at Aldeburgh’s Snape Maltings the extraordinary range of colors and narratives that these pieces suggest. Beethoven’s Opus 1 features amongst Trio Goya’s central repertoire, played regularly in the UK’s most prestigious venues and beyond. After a recent Wigmore Hall concert, Early Music Today wrote that “Trio Goya sent us home spinning on the delights and laughter of early Beethoven. His piano trio opus 1 No. 1 frothed and bubbled down the finale's theme, the musicians swept along by their own hell-for-leather, immaculately kept tempo.” These pieces mark a kind of beginning in Beethoven’s career. They were indeed planned and executed, over a period of two years, with unprecedented care and skill; they mark the start of a new creative period for the young genius, which is distinct from the younger Bonn years and is fully deserving of the label ‘first maturity’ conferred by the musicologist Lewis Lockwood.

Following three acclaimed releases for AVIE surveying works by Dvo?ák, Schubert and contemporary Americans, the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet turns to the seminal string quartets of Beethoven, performing the five quartets from the composer’s middle period. Formed in 1996, the Cypresses added Beethoven to their repertoire early on. Their signature sound, which is clear and transparent, built up from the bottom register and layered like a pyramid, lends itself beautifully to the Middle String Quartets – the three “Rasumovskys,” the “Harp,” and the “Serioso.” Included in this new box set - released internationally on November 11, 2014 on Avie Records - are original, extensive and insightful program notes written by Nicholas Mathews, professor at UC Berkeley. - Cypress String Quartet

"I'd never heard the Brentano before, this was their British debut, but I knew of their reputation. And the agile, wiry intelligence of their playing, in a constant state of alert, was...good as promised. They followed with as momentous a performance of Beethoven's Op. 130 quartets as I've ever heard live...Passionate, uninhibited and spell-bounding." - The Independent

"The Brentano String Quartet brings a special level of refinement and attention to detail... Among its many strengths is an ability to deliver on the chamber music ideals of equal partnership and intellectual dialogue. The group produces a sound that gives the impression of a single, unified instrument that is beautifully balanced and sensitive to the changing importance of individual lines." - AllMusic Guide

The Brentano Quartet’s third volume of Beethoven’s Late String Quartets for æon features the opp. 130/133. + The relation between form and language seems to haunt the writing of the B flat major Quartet, the composer struggling with the enigmatic question of our intimate experience in relation to music and the sense of musical composition. + However, in the Grosse Fuge, op. 133, Beethoven the visionary proclaims his unshakeable faith in the world like an implacable will facing menace and chaos. + The pertinence of the struggle marks the work’s structure and character, one of his most inspired.

Founded in 1992, the New York-based Brentano Quartet is known for its interpretations combining perfect technique and matchless musicality. Those qualities are even more obvious in this series of late Beethoven quartets with this first volume bringing together the Op. 127 and 131. This pure crystal of intelligence and brilliance will doubtless constitute a milestone.

BEETHOVEN String Quartets Nos. 12-16. Allegretto in b • Lydian Str Qrt • CENTAUR CRC 3212/14 (3 CDs 196:14)


In its recordings, the Lydian Quartet has been associated primarily with 20th-century American music, although it has ranged much more widely in its concertizing. Here it tackles the very pinnacle of the standard quartet repertoire, in competition with virtually every distinguished string quartet of the past half-century and beyond. Fortunately, the Lydian contribution is far from redundant, for these are fine and distinctive performances, recorded in very realistic sound. The Lydian players take what might be termed a “classical” approach to these iconic works, in that they tend to set a tempo and hold it firmly, although not without a tasteful application of rubato at some points. They are also particularly concerned with rhythmic precision and clean, clear articulation. They neither rush nor linger, generally avoiding extremes of tempo. These tightly organized performances are further characterized by well-focused tone, precise intonation, shapely phrasing, and judicious pacing. They also display an unusual degree of clarity and attention to balances among the instruments, with a more open, less-blended sound than that produced by such Central European ensembles as the Alban Berg, Smetana, and Takács Quartets. This clarity is a major asset in handling the often complex texture of Beethoven’s writing, and exchanges among the instruments are unusually well defined.


In the first movement of No. 12, op. 127, after an effective statement of the ecstatic opening chords, the Lydian players establish a well-chosen main tempo, one that is urgent without being rushed. The integration of tempo that is a characteristic of these performances and that promotes unity and continuity is in evidence here, as well as in the lengthy slow movement, which is taken at a quicker pace than in performances by the Alban Berg, Takács, or Cypress Quartets but does not seem at all hurried. The scherzo is vigorous but not rushed, as it sometimes is (likewise the trio), and the Allegro finale too is urgent but unhurried. The first movement of the A-Minor quartet, No. 15, op.132, steady and well articulated, successfully conveys the anguish embedded in this movement, if less passionately than the Takács or Cypress. The “Heiliger Dankgesang” slow movement, less drawn out than in the Takács performance, is convincingly paced, and captures the transcendent sublimity and other-worldly serenity of this music. The finale, alternately pleading and hopeful, is taken somewhat more deliberately than in most performances but is thoroughly persuasive.


The first movement of No. 13, op. 130, is urgent and coherent in the Lydian performance. Its shifting tempos are well integrated, and the frequently contrapuntal textures of the movement emerge with satisfying clarity. The Presto is brilliant without being rushed. The following Andante moves along briskly, with gratifyingly clear articulation, and is followed by a propulsive but graceful Alla danza tedesca . (How different is the Cypress Quartet’s more deliberate and flexible treatment of the latter movement, punctuated with small Luftpausen !) The Lydian players take the Cavatina a good deal more quickly than the Takács, Emerson, Endellion, and some others, in a rendition that, without being drenched in emotion, eloquently conveys the sense of poignant resignation expressed in this music. The dense counterpoint of the Grosse Fuge benefits especially from the textural clarity characteristic of these performances, and the Lydian players turn in one of the most cleanly executed and precisely articulated renditions of this difficult movement in my experience. Clarity is also a major asset in the fugal opening movement of No. 14, op. 131, taken at a relatively brisk pace that underplays what Jerry Dubins (in 36:1) calls its “cold, impersonal, remote, and alien cosmogony.” After a propulsive and rhythmically lively second movement, the lengthy Andante ma non troppo variations are also a bit on the quick side, their disparate tempos well integrated, as is usual in the Lydian performances. The succeeding Presto is vigorous but not rushed. The final Allegro is deliberate and resolute at the beginning, gains momentum, and builds to an appropriately angry and defiant climax. I don’t much care, however, for the way the three vehement final chords are spread out, but this is a feature the Lydian has in common with a good many other performances. The last of the quartets, No. 16, op. 135, also receives a convincing performance, one in which the emphasis is less on what Jerry Dubins called the “foppery and tomfoolery” and more on the panoply of serious emotions inhabiting the work, although the first two movements are certainly lively and playful enough.


In addition to the five Late Quartets, the set includes a half-minute Allegretto dating from 1817, which first violinist Daniel Stepner describes as “a sort of neo-baroque greeting card for a friend” and claims to be “recorded here for the first time.” That claim may or may not be technically true, since the Lydian performances were recorded over an extended period, from 2003 through 2010, and it is not indicated which piece was recorded when. But the Allegretto is also included in the Endellion Quartet’s complete set of Beethoven quartets and quintets. That performance was recorded in 2005 and released well before the Lydian effort. The Allegretto is placed first in the Lydian set, followed by the Late Quartets in order of composition (Nos. 12, 15, 13, 14, 16), a configuration I find desirable. As is usual these days, the disc containing No. 13 places the Grosse Fuge after the Cavatina as the finale to the work, followed by the alternate finale, so that when playing the disc straight through one gets a conflated version with both finales. That is probably the most practical arrangement for a CD presentation, since the Grosse Fuge should normally be heard in its original role as the finale to the quartet. When I first became seriously interested in the Beethoven quartets as an undergraduate in the mid 1960s, restoration of the Grosse Fuge to that role was just beginning to take hold, and the prevailing practice was still to use the alternate finale and offer the Grosse Fuge as a stand-alone piece. I still occasionally enjoy hearing the quartet that way. The later finale is a fine piece in its own right and the last music completed by Beethoven, and if we didn’t know of the Grosse Fuge we wouldn’t think to question its suitability as a conclusion to the work.


I have mentioned that the Lydian performances are recorded in very realistic sound, but to access that quality, as well as the merits of the performances themselves, it is especially critical to find the correct and in this case quite high volume level. When that is accomplished, the effect is pretty close to having an actual string quartet playing in the room, with the instruments precisely placed and clearly differentiated. Some may be put off by the very bright, aggressive treble sound, however.


Although I certainly recommend this set, I have no intention of designating a “best” or “first choice” recording. Unlike some commentators, I am a pluralist and do not believe that any single performance can exhaust the content of music of such depth and complexity as this. The poised, balanced, tightly controlled Lydian performances offer a perspective markedly different from that of the more flexible, emphatic, strongly characterized, occasionally over-enthusiastic renditions of the Cypress Quartet, with its rich, sometimes massive sonority. Both these perspectives have something to offer. The contributions of these two ensembles, notwithstanding their excellence and distinctive qualities, do not supersede but rather add to the many fine recordings that have preceded them. The outstanding interpretations of the Alban Berg, Smetana, Emerson, and Takács Quartets certainly retain their value, as do distinguished earlier recordings by Quartetto Italiano and the Yale Quartet, the multiple traversals by the legendary Budapest Quartet, and, going still further into the past, the equally legendary contributions of the Busch Quartet, to name only those recordings I have available for comparison. The variety of approach, sonority, voicing, and detail in these recordings enlarges and enriches our experience of these transcendent quartets.


FANFARE: Daniel Morrison

Classical Music

Hailed for Their Outstanding Musicianship, the Arianna String Quartet - Violinists John McGrosso and Julia Sakharova, Violist Joanna Mendoza and Cellist Kurt Baldwin - Has Firmly Established Itself As One of America's Finest Chamber Ensembles. Their Performances Have Been Praised for Tonal Warmth, Fastidious Balance... Expressive Vitality (Chicago Tribune) and Emotional Commitment and Fluent Virtuosity, (Pretoria News, South Africa). This Double-Disc Set Finds the Group Initiating a Complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle with the Earliest of the Quartet Opuses, Op. 18/1-6.

The Cypress String Quartet completes their cycle of the genre’s greatest oeuvre with a two-album set of Beethoven’s six ground-breaking quartets, Op. 18, alongside a reissue of their previously self-released recording of the late quartets. For the past several seasons, the Cypresses have immersed themselves in performing Beethoven on tours throughout the United States and Europe as well as recording all 16 works plus the “Grande Fugue” (Große Fuge). The completion of their Beethoven cycle is a fitting celebration of the Bay Area-based ensemble’s 20th anniversary as well as their valedictory season.

This set is offered at a special price: 8 discs for the cost of 4.

Melinda Bargreen, THe Seattle Times: These readings are long on nuance and subtlety, heightened by an immediacy of sound that is in many cases breathtaking.

Digital Audio & Compact Disc Review: the superb Orford Quartet's Beethoven cycle are solid, vibrant, satisfying on the highest musical leve.

An unrivalled compendium on disc of the Beethoven’s compositional laboratory, full of experiments that would be refined throughout his career to create the piano’s ‘New Testament’ of 32 sonatas. Under the title of ‘early variations’, Alessandro Commellato has brought together all those theme with variation sets for solo and four hands piano that were not included in the main catalogue of Beethoven's compositions. In fact not all of them are early: the imposing C minor 32 Variations WoO80 are the best-known work here, composed as late as 1806, and the sets on Rule Britannia and God save the King were written a year or two earlier, and perhaps not only for commercially expedient reasons, given Beethoven’s admiration for the British resistance to the proclamation of the French Empire. More common, however, are the variation sets where Beethoven was establishing his voice and refining his technique by exercising his imagination on melodies from popular marches and operas by Grétry, Paisiello and Mozart. The composer used these works to curry favour with patrons such as Prince Lichnowsky; even on occasion as dedicatory gifts in order to make amends for his notoriously obstreperous behaviour, such as the variations on a Dittersdorf arietta, ‘Es war einmal’ (Once upon a time) which he gave in the summer of 1792 to Eleonore von Breuning, daughter of Maria Helena, who had welcomed the young wayward artist into her home. Alessandro Commellato uses an 1823 fortepiano by Joseph Böhm, a Viennese piano-maker whose instruments were known to Beethoven, bestowing on this recording an unusual degree of authenticity. He is a specialist in historically informed performances of Viennese Classicism: previous discs for Brilliant Classics include music by Beethoven’s pupils such as the cello sonatas of Ferdinand Ries and piano concertos by Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

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REVIEW:

Commellato’s choice of specific instruments for particular works is a personal one, and it is always well-considered. There are five different fortepianos heard here, each with its own unique sound, with the earliest having very distinctly harpsichord-like characteristics and the latest (dating to 1823) beginning to possess some of the range and tone of the more-familiar instruments created later in the 19th century. All in all, this is a fascinating foray into less-known Beethoven and into a form that the composer used in his piano music throughout his life, right through to the second and concluding movement of his final piano sonata.

– Infodad.com