"Brahms, a splendid pianist, had a special diffidence regarding chamber music for strings alone. He fussed endlessly with the string quartet medium and said in later years that he had written twenty before producing one good enough to publish – and at that, he published only three. He was forty by the time he allowed the first two to see the light of day, and they had occupied him for some eight years.
Perhaps Beethoven’s shadow, of which he was acutely conscious, loomed too heavily in this area. Brahms felt less hesitant writing for a medium Beethoven had never touched: he turned out two string sextets in his late twenties and early thirties.

All this puts a special focus on the two String Quintets. By the time Brahms wrote them (Op. 88 in 1882 and Op. 111 in 1890) he was at the peak of his powers. Whatever internal dilemmas he had faced had been successfully resolved, and also he had learned that a string quintet with two cellos – so memorably employed by Schubert – was not to his liking. But Brahms was always partial to dark coloring, and it seems natural that he would be strongly drawn to the dark-hued viola quintet."

— Excerpt from the original liner notes from ARC1-4849 by Shirley Fleming

"Harvested by Bartók, Kodály and a few others from 1904–5 on, [the authentic folk music of the Hungarian peasant], with its characteristic melodic contours, provided the leaven for a generation of Hungarian composers to create an entirely new musical ethos. There were other influences upon Bartók, among them those of Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg; he also investigated and allowed his music to be colored by folk music other than Hungarian, especially Romanian, Slovakian and Arabic. But it was from Hungarian music itself that he drew the strongest sustenance, Hungarian peasant music that had for generations rubbed shoulders with, influencing and being influenced by, the music of neighboring peoples. “Race purity” in music, he believed resulted in musical poverty: the richest hoard of folk music is fructified by the music it comes into contact with...

Notable in the quartets from No. 2 on is an unprecedented interest in extending stringed-instrument techniques. Before Bartók composers had been content to write mainly within the traditional virtuoso limits, and even Paul Hindemith, a string player himself, had little interest in going beyond the normal or conventional bowing and fingering procedures. These did not satisfy Bartók, who demanded unusual multiple stops, unorthodox fingerings, several different types of pizzicato and glissando and a whole arsenal of special effects that have revolutionized the string player’s approach to his instrument – all despite Bartók’s never having played any but keyboard instruments.

But the importance of his achievement lies not in the ingenuity of the writing or the novelty of the style but in the strength and persuasion of the works that resulted. In all these quartets musical logic prevails; the materials are distinctive and memorable, their manipulation magisterial, and the combination produces an unparalleled series of masterpieces, each with its individual delights – and its individual problems for players and listeners alike."

— excerpt from the original liner notes from ARL3–2412 by Halsey Stevens

Reviews of some of the original recordings that make up this set:

Quintets K 174, K 516, K 593, K 406
"There is some pretty powerful playing here too, and though some listeners might prefer a more intimate approach to the quintets, I rather enjoyed the Guarneri's big, bold Mozart. In the comparatively small-scale K174 there is some restraint, with delicacy and charm in the Adagio, but it is still early Mozart without frills, directly and boldly presented. Steven Tenenbom seems to have a bigger tone as 'guest' viola than Ida Kavafian, which encourages the group to play Out more in K516. In this work there is warmth but a fairly tough, energetic response to the music: perhaps some of the accents in the Minuet and Trio are too brusque. The players attack the first note of K406 with some force too, and this movement's minor key drama is played to the full. But there is a degree of tenderness, if not any really soft playing in the Andante. In K593 the Adagio is nicely shaped, and there are some neatly phrased passages in the finale, but strength of attack is again very evident in the first movement and in the Minuet and Trio. Nowhere throughout all four works is there a dull movement, or even a dull moment."

-- A.S., Gramophone [9/1988]

Dvorák's 14 string quartets stand as the finest and most imposing works in the medium after Beethoven (and until Shostakovich), though the early works certainly vary in quality. But from No. 4 onward, his achievement is mightily impressive and deserves far more attention from music lovers than it usually receives. As with the "Dumky" Piano Trio, the popularity of a single work (the "American" Quartet) has overwhelmed the others, and more's the pity.

How lovely, then, to see Arkivmusic.com issuing this two-disc "on demand" set as part of its larger program of Guarneri Quartet reissues. These are excellent performances, one and all. The group has the ability (similar to the great Czech ensembles) of being able to attack a phrase with sharp, clean rhythms without coarsening their tone or stiffening the phrase, and this is critical in Dvorák. Some examples include the opening theme of the "American" Quartet, or the "hunting" cadence melody at the end of the Thirteenth Quartet's first-movement exposition. The result is stylish, lively, and singing, just as it should be.

The Terzetto, for two violins and viola, also is a masterpiece of its type, astonishingly colorful (given the limited resources) and full of typically memorable melodic invention. Check out the scherzo, with its pizzicato and sul ponticello textures--marvelously realized here. The sonics are a bit dated in the sense that they tend to individualize the four players rather than helping them to blend into a cohesive ensemble, but that was very much the taste in the 1960s and early '70s when these recordings were made, and the ear quickly adjusts. A wonderful reissue for quartet lovers.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

By 1845, only two years before his death, Mendelssohn at 36 was an eminent 'establishment' figure—but one whose creative imagination no longer had its first freshness. I entirely agree with the American sleeve-note writer that the Quintet's crowning glory is its slow movement, "an elegaic Adagio in D minor, remarkable especially for the way Mendelssohn uses his small ensemble to suggest deep contrasts of light and shadow". And though the elves and sprites of the Scherzo, marked Andante scherzando, sound a little middle-aged in comparison with their nimbler cousins in the Octet and other earlier marvels, they are certainly not without charm. In the active flanking movements Mendelssohn's motivation seems impersonal, like a return to eighteenth-century delight in superlative craftsmanship per se. Here the Guarneris and Zukerman greatly help the composer with their urgent drive. Some of the tremolo down below emerges just a bit hard in the first movement, but their assualt on the finale's con fuoco counterpoint makes for an exciting finish. They find the grace for the Scherzo, and the expressive intensity for the Adagio.

-- Gramophone [2/1980, reviewing the original LP release of the Mendelssohn Quintet]

R E V I E W S:

"Taut, intense, and beautifully shaped, the playing conveys the music’s drama, haunting lyricism, and bold originality. Hearing it, one is led to think that Leonard Bernstein committed a major omission when he said that “alone” among all composers, Beethoven had “a direct line to God.” The eerie tremolos of No. 15 here are stunningly otherworldly; the continuity and building tension of the second-movement variations in No. 14, compelling; the bold brashness of the opening of the “Quartettsatz,” intrusively arresting. And throughout all the performances, care with balances produces a welcome clarity of voicing that underscores Schubert’s harmonic daring."

FANFARE: Mortimer H. Frank

Lovely playing, as nearly always from these artists... The Quartettsatz was written four years before the A minor Quartet. There's certainly no lack of shivers and shudders here: indeed, you get the impression that the players were deliberately saving up all their disquiet for the key of C minor. The recording quality is very natural throughout.

-- Gramophone [2/1973, reviewing the original LP release of Quartets 12 and 14]

In the early 1960s, four young musicians who had been playing chamber music at Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro School and Festival in Vermont were encouraged to form a string quartet. In July 1964, the Guarneri Quartet gave its first concert and less than a year later made its first recordings under contract to RCA Victor. For the next 45 years, with only one change of personnel, the Guarneris performed all over the world and amassed a large, wide-ranging, prize-winning discography. Sony Classical now presents, for the first time in a single collection, all the recordings made by the Guarneri Quartet for RCA between 1965 and 2005.

When the announcement came of its retirement at the end of the 2008–09 season, the eminent British critic Rob Cowan wrote a perceptive, affectionate tribute to the Guarneri Quartet in Gramophone, comparing it to the Juilliard Quartet, the other superb ensemble that had dominated the American quartet catalogue for so many years. Using their respective Bartók recordings as an example, he contrasted the “cut-glass precision” of the Juilliard’s early-60s set to the Guarneri’s “volatile, free-spirited, generously expressive and tonally rich” performing style in its RCA cycle from the mid-70s.

That characterization of the Guarneri Quartet’s playing runs through virtually all the reviews garnered in their long recording career, a story that began with the 1966 release of two of Mozart’s late “Prussian” Quartets and an album coupling Dvořák and Smetana. HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “not since the Juilliard String Quartet set the New York music world on its collective ear some 25 years ago has a new chamber group created such a furor as the Guarneri Quartet on the occasion of its New York début in February, 1965. This pair of discs demonstrates eloquently what all the shouting was about, for these players – Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer – blend precision with flexibility of phrasing and rhythm in a way not often encountered in contemporary American string groups. Here, indeed, is the influence of the seed bed from which the quartet stems – the Marlboro of Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals … To the Smetana [‘From My Life’] the Guarneri Quartet brings blazing intensity and fierce rhythmic verve, while the wonderful slow movement of the Dvořák [Op. 105] comes forth from the stereo speakers with an almost orchestral lushness, yet with inner voices flawlessly balanced.”

Other critics concurred in their reviews of these two LPs: “The foursome produces an unfailingly luscious tone, plays with letter-perfect intonation, and displays all sorts of felicitous pinpoint balances and coloristic effects. And how these gentlemen stay together … even in the most wayward of tempo changes. In short, this is ensemble work of a transcendental variety … The Guarneri Quartet is the most gifted group of its kind I have heard in years” (High Fidelity). “This is distinguished Mozart playing indeed. Its technical excellence needs little comment: as with the Dvořák/Smetana record … last month, with this team you take technical mastery for granted as soon as you hear the first phrase, and straightaway it's the intensely musical quality of the playing which strikes you. Theirs is Mozart played with the classical virtues, above all with firm line, poise and sensibility. The surface of the music is polished, but how much the Guarneri Quartet find beneath” (Gramophone).

Arthur Rubinstein was the quartet’s longtime keyboard partner. In 1966, they recorded the Piano Quintets of Schumann and Brahms: “Rubinstein and the Guarneris search out to equally convincing effect the flowingly lyrical aspects of the music, and this yields special rewards in a ravishing slow movement [the Brahms]” (HiFi Stereo Review). Dvořák’s followed in 1971: “The performance is beautifully balanced between the gentleman at the keyboard and the gentlemen with strings, and the sense of give and take comes from the experience of many collaborations” (High Fidelity).

They also recorded the piano quartet literature, beginning in 1967 with “beautiful performances” (High Fidelity) of Brahms. Their reading of Fauré’s Op. 25 in C minor was judged (also by High Fidelity) to be “beautifully played and exquisitely well reproduced. The instrumental lines are wonderfully clear in this highly directional recording … Rubinstein displays his regal style.” And in a disc containing both of Mozart’s piano quartets, “the playing throughout both sides is extremely beautiful … and superbly integrated – at once expressive and elegant, making all of Mozart’s points with clarity, straightforwardness, and the exalted give-and-take that is the life’s breath of real chamber music. The recorded sound, too, is exceptional for its richness, balance, and clarity” (HiFi Stereo Review).

One of many other composers who feature prominently in Sony’s Guarneri collection is Haydn. About the ensemble’s 1977 recording of the two Op.77 quartets, HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “these spirited, attractive performances of Haydn's two greatest string quartets are marked by a sense of real involvement. Articulation is crisp, ensemble is impeccable, and there is an organic flow from the first phrase to the last in each work”, while Gramophone praised their “deeply thoughtful, powerfully paced” 1986 reading of Haydn’s Seven Last Words.

With reinforcement from the Budapest Quartet in 1965, the Guarneris produced an “absolutely stunning performance (HiFi Stereo Review) of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence sextet. In 1966, they recorded quartets by Mendelssohn and Grieg (the latter receiving its CD première in this set): “The Guarneri ensemble does itself proud throughout this disc – most notably in the Mendelssohn, in which they display a tonal homogeneity and a warmth of phrasing that are truly striking. It is as though one instrument, not four, were producing the lovely sound that emerges from the speakers. Happily, the RCA recording staff has come up here with a string quartet sonority of the utmost intimacy, yet endowed with just enough room tone to enhance the naturally warm tone of the Guarneris” (HiFi Stereo Review).

But the heart of any string quartet’s repertoire is inevitably the Beethoven cycle, and it is with these works that the Guarneris were most closely associated. They made their complete recording for RCA between 1966 and 1969. Gramophone described the Early Quartets as “elegant and buoyant, with well-chosen tempos, subtle bowing, crisp articulation, telling contrasts between staccato and legato, and a consistent sense of style.” HiFi Stereo Review enumerated the virtues of their Middle Quartets: “(1) excellent intonation; (2) glowing tone; (3) ensemble that is balanced and accurate but always flexible and natural; (4) superb phrasing and line-building; (5) good feeling for a high Beethoven style. These are strong and expressive readings that often achieve great poetic insight and a powerful dynamic impulse.” The HiFi Stereo Review’s critic rhapsodized over their Late Quartets: “If I had to make the choice of a very few records to take with me to a desert island, I’d choose recordings of the last five Beethoven string quartets. Now, with the arrival of this new album (complete with the Grosse Fuge) by the Guarneri Quartet, I’ve got my island package. All I need is the island. The Guarneri is, without a doubt, one of the most extraordinary string quartets before the public these days: the group has an absolutely stunning sense of both soloistic and ensemble color. Indeed, I can’t think of another string quartet that can match them for sheer sensuous appeal.”

SUMMARY:

• With the first release of the Guarneri Quartet’ recording of Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 3, transferred and edited from the session reels using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

• 9 quartet recordings for the first time on CD, transferred and mastered from the original analog tapes, 3 quartets remastered, using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

• Includes collaborations with Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Rose, Mischa Schneider, Pinchas Zukerman, Walter Trampler, Ida Kavafian, and more

• Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes