Search results: Search results

884 results

Products

Hindemith: String Quartets Nos. 2 and 6

Wergo

$20.99 Sep 01, 1997

The second CD with Paul Hindemith’s string quartets - superbly interpreted by the renowned Juilliard String Quartet - has just been released. Samuel Rhodes writes in the liner notes of the CD: "My group, the Juilliard String Quartet, has been fascinated by the Hindemith quartets for some time. We are challenged by the depth of the musical content, the overflowing vitality, and the sophistication of compositional technique that exist in these works." German Record Critics' Award for the complete recording of Hindemith's string quartets by the Juilliard String Quartet! The CD was awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics' Award!

View Full Page

Hindemith: String Quartets Nos. 2 and 6
Wergo Sep 1997
CD
$20.99

Janácek, Novák: String Quartets
Supraphon Apr 2000
CD
$21.99

Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets / Quatuor Danel

Accentus Music

$92.99 Apr 19, 2024

With their recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's complete string quartets, the Quatuor Danel has crafted an impressive opus that delves into the composer's life with deep musical understanding and establishes unparalleled standards in interpreting his chamber music. These new live recordings, stemming from their 2022 residency at the Mendelssohn Hall of the Gewandhaus Leipzig, capture the full spectrum of emotions embedded in Shostakovich’s quartet cycle, from the ethereal to the profound, from the whimsical to the contemplative. With their interpretation of this extraordinary cycle, the Quatuor Danel has forged a distinctive Shostakovich style that cannot be found in any other quartet. Primarius Marc Danel reflects on the resonance with the audience in Leipzig, describing it as nothing short of sensational. “I hope the recordings will also convey the collective spirit we permanently felt during our residency in the Mendelssohn Hall."

Recorded live at Mendelssohn-Saal Gewandhaus zu Leipzig February & May, 2022

REVIEW:

The Quatuor Danel succeeds in working out new dimensions of expression under the best acoustic conditions. The fact that this music comes across so intensely in the present recordings is certainly also due to the sound crew. Rarely have we heard a recording as balanced and transparent as this one.

-- Pizzicato

REVIEW:

Schooled and nurtured by both the Borodin and Beethoven quartets, the Danel has inherited their performing legacy yet adds its own voice. Its players also understand Shostakovich’s structures which, although cast in traditional forms of sonata, fugatos, Beethovenian motivic development and passacaglias, are at the same time free and exploratory. The new shakes hands with tradition, and the Danel is alert to this, its surgically precise textures allowing the listener to hear these ideas clearly. There are parts of the writing, such as in the opening movements of Quartets nos.8 and 15, where the influence of Renaissance music is clearly evident. Here, the Danel sculpts the sense of tension and resolution very effectively.

— The Strad

View Full Page

Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets / Quatuor Danel
Accentus Music Apr 2024
CD
$92.99

Mendelssohn, Schumann: String Quartets / Guarneri Quartet

RCA

$21.99 Sep 01, 2015

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]

View Full Page

Mendelssohn, Schumann: String Quartets / Guarneri Quartet
RCA Sep 2015
CD
$21.99

Bartók - Kurtág - Ligeti: String Quartets
CAvi-music Jan 2014
CD
$19.99

Sale

Shostakovich: String Quartets, Vol. 4
Brilliant Classics Jul 2025
CD
~~$16.99~~ $12.99

Schönberg: String Quartets / Leipzig String Quartet
MDG Aug 1999
CD
$23.99

Verd, Tchaikovsky: String Quartets - Puccini: Crisantemi / Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartett

Linn Records

$20.99 Sep 09, 2022

Born out of a great orchestral tradition, the Streichquartett der Staatskapelle Berlin began its life in 2017, on the judicious advice of Daniel Barenboim. Since then the four string section leaders of the famed Staatskapelle Berlin have been performing on many of the world’s most famous stages. Building on its familiarity with the world of opera, the quartet’s first album highlights three operatic heavyweights. Verdi’s string quartet, his only surviving chamber music work, was composed in 1873 while the composer was at the height of his creative powers. Although written in a matter of weeks, it is a piece replete with beautiful melodies and idiomatic writing. Composed two years earlier, Tchaikovsky’s first string quartet harks back to Schubert and Beethoven and embraces their ideals of beauty and perfect form. Taking its inspiration from the chrysanthemum flowers associated with Italian funeral ceremonies, Puccini’s Crisantemi, dedicated to the memory of Amadeo I of Spain, completes the trio of works.

View Full Page

Verd, Tchaikovsky: String Quartets - Puccini: Crisantemi / Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartett
Linn Records Sep 2022
CD
$20.99

Mozart & Beethoven: Quintets for Winds & Piano

Haenssler Classic

$20.99 Aug 14, 2015

The Staatskapelle Dresden unquestionably belongs to the international elite of orchestras. Here, the outstanding wind soloists of this vaunted orchestra, together with the Munich-based pianist Margarita Höhenrieder, perform two special works from the Viennese classical repertoire: Mozart's Quintet for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano in E flat major, K. 452, and the Quintet in E flat major, Op. 16 by Beethoven. As a very special encore, oboist Bernd Schober has edited the beloved Andante from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 for wind quintet and piano.

View Full Page

Mozart & Beethoven: Quintets for Winds & Piano
Haenssler Classic Aug 2015
CD
$20.99

Bacewicz: Complete String Quartets Vol 1 / Lutoslawski Quartet

Naxos

$9.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 50% Jul 10, 2015

Musicologist Adrian Thomas considered Grazyna Bacewicz’s string quartets “unrivalled in 20th-century Polish music and… one of the century’s most significant contributions to the genre”. Her folk-music infused First Quartet dates from student days at the Paris Conservatoire, while exceptional polyphonic skill, intense emotion and playful, high spirits characterize the Third Quartet. Both the Sixth and Seventh Quartets unite tradition with a strikingly effective and highly personal exploration of progressive contemporary techniques. As Lutoslawski observed, in the “rapidly changing artistic currents” of the times, “it was [Bacewicz’s] music which helped create that atmosphere.”

View Full Page

Sale

Bacewicz: Complete String Quartets Vol 1 / Lutoslawski Quartet
Naxos Jul 2015
CD
~~$19.99~~ $9.99

The Schubert Connection

Blu-Ray with SACD

$33.99 ~~$44.99~~ Save 25% Mar 26, 2013

This wonderful release features Schubert's String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810 and Grieg's String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 27. By placing side by side two works that at first sight seem fairly different, this recording aims to bring into the open, for the first time, the fascinating details that link them.

View Full Page

Sale

The Schubert Connection
2L Mar 2013
Blu-Ray with SACD
~~$44.99~~ $33.99

Perosi: String Trio in E-Flat Major, String Quartet Nos. 9 &
Bongiovanni Jan 2001
CD
$13.99

Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets (Live)

Chandos

$87.99 Oct 28, 2016

Over the years the Brodsky Quartet has undertaken numerous performances of the complete cycle of quartets by several composers. It is, however, the complete Shostakovich cycle that has become synonymous with its name: its 2012 London performance of the cycle resulted in its taking the prestigious title of ‘Artist in Residence’ at the city’s Kings Place. One of the most rewarding aspects of performing the cycle is the way in which it seems to pan out so naturally and perfectly. To be aware that Shostakovich had intended to write twenty-four quartets, one in every key, but ended up with these fifteen thereby creating a unique musical journey that feels predestined and all-encompassing, makes one think that there really must be a greater force at work. The Quartet now adds to its famed discography this remarkable release, recorded live at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw.

View Full Page

Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets (Live)
Chandos Oct 2016
CD
$87.99

Schubert: String Quartets No. 10 And No. 14, "Death And The
BIS Nov 2002
CD
$21.99

Spohr: String Quartets Vol 5 / New Budapest Quartet
Marco Polo May 1991
CD
$19.99

Beneš: The Complete String Quartets / Martinů Quartet

Supraphon

$29.99 Oct 14, 2022

Some extraordinarily talented figures’ lives and work impressed and significantly influenced their contemporaries, yet their imprint was later effaced just like a footprint by the tide. And many years later, we are thus astonished by the rediscovery of such forgotten legacies. Josef Beneš (Joseph Benesch) was primarily referred to in period sources as a virtuoso violinist and distinguished teacher. Born in Batelov (Battelau), a village on the borderline between Bohemia and Moravia, from the age of 19 he lived in Vienna and Ljubljana, and gave concerts across Europe. During his time in Italy, he familiarized himself with Niccolò Paganini and Alessandro Rolla. He held prestigious posts (music director of the Philharmonic Society in Ljubljana, professor of the Music Academy in Vienna, first concertmaster of the Hoftheater).

Few of his works have survived, with the majority of them being music Beneš wrote for his own solo performances. His final pieces, two string quartets (published in 1865 and 1871, respectively) date from the period when he no longer pursued a career as a soloist, yet all the parts require very dexterous players. Now, 150 years later, the Martinu Quartet, who have rediscovered a number of overlooked works of music, are evidently the first to perform the quartets, which definitely do not deserve to fall into oblivion.

View Full Page

Beneš: The Complete String Quartets / Martinů Quartet
Supraphon Oct 2022
CD
$29.99

Sale

Mozart: String Quintets, K. 516 & K. 406
CRD Records Jan 2013
CD
~~$20.99~~ $15.99

Schubert: String Quartets "Rosamunde", "Death and the Maiden" / Doric String Quartet

Chandos

$10.99 ~~$21.99~~ Save 50% Sep 25, 2012

On its new release, the Doric String Quartet turns to the music of Franz Schubert. It is the Quartet’s fifth release for Chandos, and the discography has gone from strength to strength. MusicWeb International said of the recent Korngold release (CHAN 10707): ‘The Doric Quartet seem to have a Midas touch, and any repertoire they commit to disc comes out sparkling.’ Their Schumann release (CHAN 10692) was ‘Recording of the Month’ in both Gramophone and BBC Music.

In March 1824, despite describing himself as ‘the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world’, Schubert completed not only the great Octet, but also the two String Quartets recorded here.

The String Quartet in D minor is considered the greatest of Schubert’s late quartets, mainly on account of its raw emotional honesty, which reaches an almost unendurable pitch in the second movement, a set of variations based on Schubert’s song Der Tod und das Mädchen. All four movements are driven by extensively repeated rhythmic figures, reminiscent of the musical style of Schubert’s great idol, Beethoven.

Full of Schubertian ambivalence, the String Quartet in A minor is a deeply intimate work. The opening, expressing brooding sadness, is played by the first violin over a restless accompaniment, subsequently interrupted by flurries of almost manic energy. In the second movement, Schubert ‘borrowed’ the main melody from the third Entr’acte of his incidental music to the play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (1823) by Wilhelmine von Chézy.

- Chandos

View Full Page

Sale

Schubert: String Quartets "Rosamunde", "Death and the Maiden" / Doric String Quartet
Chandos Sep 2012
CD
~~$21.99~~ $10.99

Widmann: String Quartet No 1 - 5 / Leipzig String Quartet, Juliane Banse

MDG

$23.99 Aug 01, 2008

WIDMANN String Quartets: No. 1; No. 2, “Choral Quartet”; No. 3, “Hunting Quartet”; No. 4; No. 5, “Attempt at the Fugue” 1 • Leipzig Str Qrt; Juliane Banse (sop) 1 • MDG 307 1531 (76:44)

Born in 1973, Jörg Widmann has two careers: as a clarinetist, he teaches at the Freiburg College of Music, performs regularly, and has recorded music by Beethoven, Brahms, Harald Genzmer, and Wolfgang Rihm; as a composer who studied under Rihm, Wilfried Hiller, and Hans Werner Henze, his works are piling up European prizes with remarkable frequency. In the latter role, Widmann exhibits an interesting postmodern (if that word still has any relevance) conceptualism. These five compact, one-movement string quartets, for example, though composed over a period of years (1997–2005), when combined suggest the macro-structure of a single quartet—that is, the individual quartets serve the function of an “introduction,” “largo,” “scherzo,” “andante/passacaglia,” and “finale: quasi-fugue,” respectively. Whether or not Widmann had this scheme in mind from the very beginning is hard to say, but there is internal evidence that unifies and enhances their relationship, thematically and dramatically.

One of the conceptual features of Widmann’s music is a fluid blending of historical sounds and styles. The Quartet No. 3, for instance, takes its nickname from the familiar “hunting” rhythm adapted, in this case, from one of Robert Schumann’s Papillons , which gradually unravels into a more contemporary fabric of melodic fragments and disrupted rhythms (Widmann calls it “splinterizing” and “skeletalizing” the form). Quartet No. 2 is a reflection on death influenced by Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ ; some of the sparse music is recognizable (mournful chords that could be direct quotes) and some indistinct (non-pitched timbral effects), but the effect, while engaging, is more scene painting than movement towards a musical or emotional resolution. The Quartet No. 4 offers a walking bass line and ascending and descending patterns along with chiaroscuro textures; the sounds grow more mysterious as they drift away from the passacaglia’s theme, being somewhat reminiscent of George Rochberg’s interplay of harmonic references in his string quartets. The Quartet No. 5, longest of the sequence and the only one with a vocal component à la Schoenberg’s Second Quartet, deconstructs fugal strategies into episodes of contrasting shapes and tempos, offering close echoes of (if not actual quotes from) the Grosse Fugue and Art of Fugue . As for No. 1, it rises from silence with small Webernesque gestures, turns vigorous and frisky, is interrupted by silences, but builds to a convincing conclusion.

Widmann’s quartets are attractive, thought provoking, and well conceived, and I believe they actually work better when heard together as a connected entity than standing alone, where the occasional missteps, such as the clichéd shouts in No. 3 and the familiarity of material in No. 5, would be isolated and magnified. The benefit of having them on a single disc is the ability to choose which way you’d like to experience them.

FANFARE: Art Lange

View Full Page

Widmann: String Quartet No 1 - 5 / Leipzig String Quartet, Juliane Banse
MDG Aug 2008
CD
$23.99

Sale

Taneyev: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 4
Brilliant Classics Nov 2024
CD
~~$12.99~~ $9.99

Sale

Shostakovich: String Quartets Vol 2 / Éder Quartet
Naxos Oct 1994
CD
~~$19.99~~ $13.99

Müller-Hermann: Piano Quintet, Op. 31; Violin Sonata, Op. 5 / Triendl, Gaede et al.

Haenssler Classic

$20.99 Apr 21, 2023

The chamber music of Johanna Müller-Hermann is distinguished by its focus on pure melody, which often gives the music a lyrical character, but which she is quite willing to interrupt with stringent use of rhythm and contrast. The Austrian composer Johanna Müller-Hermann (1868-1941) was born in Vienna on January 15, 1868, to government official Alois von Hermann and Antonia Freiin von der Decken zu Himmelreich, who was eighteen years his junior. Known in her girlhood as Johanna von Hermann, she was the second of three children. The growing family enjoyed the life of the upper middle class in the inner city of Vienna. Johanna Hermann learnt the piano with Heinrich von Bocklet, who was later made Professor. She attended the Vienna Conservatory, studied musicology with Carl Navratil and historical counterpoint with Josef Labor, took violin and piano lessons, and participated in the exercises of Guido Adler.

Müller-Hermann also enrolled for the composition class of Josef Bohuslav Foerster. She published her first opus in 1903, “Seven Lieder for solo voice and piano”. The premiere of one of these songs the following year drew public attention to Müller-Hermann, and her Violin Sonata was first performed in 1905, attracting a good deal of positive comment. Critical interest was increased by the publication of her String Quartet op. 6, which celebrated its premiere six years later. The quartet was written during a period of instruction from Alexander von Zemlinsky. There is no known evidence of this teaching, nor are there any drafts, but the quartet is dedicated to Zemlinsky “in gratitude”. Public recognition came in 1917, when she was appointed Professor at the Vienna Conservatory in succession to her former teacher Josef Foerster. Her public profile benefited from her two orchestral works and even more from her choral works with orchestral accompaniment.

View Full Page

Müller-Hermann: Piano Quintet, Op. 31; Violin Sonata, Op. 5 / Triendl, Gaede et al.
Haenssler Classic Apr 2023
CD
$20.99

Dvorák: Complete String Quartets / Panocha Quartet
Supraphon May 2005
CD
$94.99

Ludwig Van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13, Op. 130; Grosse Fugue, Op. 133; Quintet For Piano And Winds, Op. 16

PHI

$15.99 ~~$20.99~~ Save 25% Oct 28, 2016

The pairing of the two works on this album is unique in that one comes from the dawn, the other from the dusk of Ludwig van Beethoven’s career. Indeed, whereas the composer wrote the Quintet for winds and piano, Op. 16 when he was only 26- the talented young man also excelled as a successful pianist- he did not finish his String Quartet Op. 130 until a year before his death. The Edding quartet proposes here the original version of the work, with the Grosse Fuge, op.130, as final. The direct comparison of these two works on the same disc intelligently sheds light on the fantastic distance the composer covered between these two points in time. Two years after their successful Schubert album, which was warmly received by the press and public, the Edding Quartet and Northernlight felicitously join together once again on the same album to give new readings of these masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire. Having become major interpreters of the Classical and Romantic repertoires, the two ensembles offer expert performances, refined and precise, of two of the German composer’s finest scores.

View Full Page

Sale

Ludwig Van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13, Op. 130; Grosse Fugue, Op. 133; Quintet For Piano And Winds, Op. 16
PHI Oct 2016
CD
~~$20.99~~ $15.99

Villa-Lobos: The Complete String Quartets / Cuarteto Latinoamericano

Sono Luminus

$53.99 Nov 13, 2015

Review of an edition previously available of this same release:

These fine performances constitute the only complete cycle currently available of the 17 string quartets that pepper Villa-Lobos' entire career. The suite-like, five-movement No. 1, with its adorable "like a jumping bean" finale, is deceptive. Most of these are resoundingly neo-classical works full of acerbic harmonies and typically busy counterpoint, with few overtly nationalistic elements. Of course they sound just like Villa-Lobos, who was himself something of a "nationalistic element" when you come right down to it. The series reaches its culmination in the large works composed around the time of the Second World War, Nos. 7-11, which really do constitute landmark 20th century contributions to the form on a par with those of Shostakovich and Bartók.

For the most part, this is tough and serious music, and it receives tough and serious performances from the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, whose rhythmic verve and slightly astringent timbre works beautifully in clarifying the dense thicket of the composer's effusive counterpoint. Occasionally the very intensity of both music and performance becomes a bit overbearing, but then no one is suggesting that you listen to 17 quartets in a row. Overall, both the works themselves and these performances remain astonishingly consistent in quality. Sonically you couldn't ask for better. At a bargain price, this is a very attractive proposition for anyone who fancies either the composer or chamber music in general.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

View Full Page

Villa-Lobos: The Complete String Quartets / Cuarteto Latinoamericano
Sono Luminus Nov 2015
CD
$53.99