Quartets

[Chaszz]

Hello again, guys. I spend so much time with Wagner and lately, Brahms, Brahms and more Brahms; confess I am light on Beethoven quartets. So I have just gotten around to the Razumovsky #1. Wonderful. Are the other two as good as this? Also please list some other favorite quartets you'd recommend. Thanks.

[Peter]

Good to hear from Chaszz as always - the other 2 are great works, but no.1 is my favourite, followed by no.3, especially the exhilarating finale. The 'Harp' quartet Op.74 is also one I think you would greatly enjoy. It took me a while to appreciate Op.95 'Serioso', but now it's a favourite. The last 5 quartets are all remarkable - some of them exist in string orchestra arrangements and the more lush sound might appeal to you at first - coming from Wagner and Brahms!

[Decrepit Poster]

Razumovsky No.3 is actually my lick of the Op.59 litter. Like Peter I'm drawn to its exuberant finale. I am also smitten by its slow second moment, with prominent pizzicato cello. Nothing wrong with the other movements either! My current listening preference for this quartet is a combination of two video performances available at YouTube but not, so far as I know, released commercially. For the first three movement I greatly enjoy this rendition by the Jasper Quartet, recorded live in concert late 2012. I especially enjoy the cellist's playing in the slow movement. I'm not, however, quite sold on their finale movement. For that I go to this filming of the finale only, by a young Borealis String Quartet. Unlike the Jasper, it is not captured in concert but rather specifically for video. Visuals might be considered "gimmicky", but I think they enhance the presentation rather than detract.

As to other favorites, I simply adore Op.131. My listening recommendation will seem sacrilege to some: Leonard Bernstein with the string section of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchesta, a live recording. I've long loved this interpretation, and think Op.131 ideally suited to bear the extra weight.

[gprengel]

To me also the first of the Quartetts of op. 59 is the peak of these 3. Here every movement is a peak of originality and beauty which is not so much the case with #2 and #3 where only single movements stand out: The Adagio of #2 with its wonderful solemnity always had been one of my favourite slow movements I know. Also the final movement has great moments!

My first approach to Beethoven's string quartett when I still was a teenager was op. 132 with its heavenly slow movement which probably is still my favourite quartett - but I adore all his late quartetts :-).

I wish I could also fall some day in love with the quartetts from op. 18. Today I love only the slow movement from op. 18,1 ...

[Michael]

My first introduction to the Beethoven quartets was a recording of Opus 59 No. 1 by the Hungarian Quartet. I bought this back in 1970 (which incidentally was a big anniversary year for Beethoven.) Having first met this composer two years earlier, I had heard all the symphonies, concertos and a few of the piano sonatas, but this was something else and I must confess that I didn't like the First Razumovsky one little bit.

My practice with unfamiliar music in those days was to let it play in the background while I read something - and about a year later I put the recording on the turntable and - allow me to be a little bit melodramatic here - the Heavens opened! I went slightly berserk after that and bought all the string quartets and to this very day they are absolutely central to my musical world.

The Opus 18 quartets were the ones I heard last, and they seemed a bit tame after the middle and late masterpieces, but over the years, I have come to appreciate early Beethoven - not as an apprentice - but as a developing composer of masterpieces which do not supersede one another.

Last year, I had the great good fortune to attend a performance of all three Razumovsky's in Bantry House - about an hour's drive from where I live. It took place in the library of an old country house, with quite a small audience, and it was magical. The Cremona Quartet, a young and lively ensemble, did the honours.

I have about five different complete recordings of the quartets - as well as numerous odd discs - and I have absolutely no intention of buying any more - but I would urge anybody who loves Beethoven - and is relatively unfamiliar with this particular branch of his output - to get to know these transcendental
masterpieces.
And don't get me started on the piano sonatas ...............

[AeolianHarp]

Talking about beserk, I'd like to know why every time I try to listen to an mp4 of The Tempest on my laptop, starting with the second mvt my laptop goes beserk making computer farting noises...
I never had a problem with it until recently...something is having a joke with me.
Time to download it again, methinks...

[Chaszz]

Thank you all for your recommendations, I will be following them...

[Michael]

Talking about beserk, I'd like to know why every time I try to listen to an mp4 of The Tempest on my laptop, starting with the second mvt my laptop goes beserk making computer farting noises...
...

Is it played on a fortepiano?
In Beethoven's original autograph manuscript of the sonata, there were some fartissimo passages ..........

[Sorrano]

Is it played on a fortepiano?
In Beethoven's original autograph manuscript of the sonata, there were some fartissimo passages ..........

Sounds more like a fartepiano.

[AeolianHarp]

Is it played on a fortepiano?

As a matter of fact it is- on a 1790 Schantz ( by Paul Badura Skoda).

In Beethoven's original autograph manuscript of the sonata, there were some fartissimo passages ..........

That joke was made in Copying Beethoven.

[AeolianHarp]

Sounds more like a fartepiano.

Can you beat that one Michael?

[Michael]

Can you beat that one Michael?

No. I should have thought of it.

You are right - that awful "fartissimo" joke was in "Copying Beethoven". I had totally forgotten.
Incidentally, the chap who wrote the screenplay for that movie was a member of this forum for a while around 2005 or 6. I can't remember his online name, but it was something like Riveles.

[AeolianHarp]

No. I should have thought of it.

You are right - that awful "fartissimo" joke was in "Copying Beethoven". I had totally forgotten.
Incidentally, the chap who wrote the screenplay for that movie was a member of this forum for a while around 2005 or 6. I can't remember his online name, but it was something like Riveles.

I have seen the archives yes. The film was visually very attractive, and some scenes were moving- Ed Harris did his best, but he wasn't quite Beethoven - far too coarse! As if Ludwig would have mooned a lady!!! He had far too much dignity for that. Remember even when he was a very young man on that music trip in Germany and his fellow musicians told the serving woman in the inn to flirt and say saucy things to him- he hated it, told her many times to stop and she carried on, so he lost his temper and slapped her ear!
Neil Monroe was the truest portrayal in Beethoven Lives Upstairs.

Listening to Harp String Quartet!!!

[hal9000]

Listening to Harp String Quartet!!!

The coda, oh how do I love the coda to the first movement. There are few words to describe the musical texture of the spirited first violin with its crazed cadenza-like passage, backed by the second violin and viola playing the first theme while the cello plays pizzicato. It's just one of those wonderful magical moments in Beethoven.

As for Beethoven's other quartets, I'm going to suggest Op 127, because I think it is slightly overshadowed by its three siblings Op 130, Op 131 and Op 132. It is Beethoven's most lyrical quartet IMO. Just have a listen to the playful dance between the violins in the second movement, or the coda to the final movement, which sounds like a musical web of interweaving musical strands. It reminds of a time-lapse video of a tree sapling sprouting out of the ground with the branches slowly emerging from the stalk.