Beethoven Late Quartets

[Philidor]

Copied from general discussion:

Who plays them best? I've spent years in the "authentic music" ghetto playing baroque flute, so find excessive vibrato a problem. Is there anyone producing historically informed performances of the late quartets? I heard the Amadeus Quartet play them years ago and their vibrato was so wide you could drive a truck through it. They wobbled about so much, in different directions, they ended up playing something but it wasn't what Beethoven wrote in his score. Yet they had the reputation for being Beethoven experts.... odd.

*****

After writing that I Googled and found Quatuor Mosaïques. Any good? Their Mozart is fabulous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWHP8NERKek

[Megan]

I like the Lindsay Quartet because of their very powerful and melodic playing.
They produce a very emotional but very tightly controlled sound which I like.
The Emerson Quartet are brilliant as well.

Locally , a couple of years back we attended a concert given by a brilliant German quartet called the Henschel Quartet. They were also excellent.

[Roehre]

I concur with Megan,
btw both Lindsays' Beethoven cycles are worth considering (ASV).

Emersons are certainly recommendable (DGG).

Of the older recordings I've got a weak point for the Julliard's (now Sony) and the LaSalle's (DGG, now Brilliant?)

[Philidor]

The trouble with the Lindsay String Quartet is they're not actually playing Beethoven. Listen to them. Follow the score.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW8wdpfkpM0

They're playing something else. There's so much modern technique plastered on the performance that dear old Beethoven - almost 200 years away - dies yet again. While the Lindsay String Quartet make his body dance about like an animated corpse. It's not dignified for the poor chap.

[Chris]

My personal favorite is the Talich Quartet, but they do not play on period instruments.

[haydnguy]

I have the Takacs Quartet and enjoy them. I haven't listened to them in a long time though so I need to give them another listen!

[Peter]

For the complete quartets I go with either the Talich or the Hungarian. The Busch quartet are a good historical set. For op.18 I like the Italiano.

[marquis66]

For my money, though the intonation is sometimes lousy, the Végh Quartet had something really special to bring to the Beethoven late quartets. If only I could find their complete set again, I didn't buy it when I could have, and now it is out of print.

[Philidor]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm still poking about trying to find one I like. I'll report back here when I do. A friend is browsing in the Barbican library here in London so can maybe get the Végh edition.

[Fidelio]

For me:

Takács Quartet & The Lindsays

[dice45]

LvB - Late Quartets

Hello Philidor,

if you convince yourself to listen to vintage recordings, you might want to try out the Budapest Quartet and/or the Barylli Quartet.

The Barylli String Quartet is a teeny bit more on the intellectual side, but i could not find any flaws, emotionally. Nothing missing, very detailed, everything in balance. Vibrato is used, but parsimoniously and as a stylistic device. The sound: 4 individualists playeing very well together.

The Budapest String Quartet is my personal favourite; i know noone being into LvB string quartets and knowing those guys and dismissing them. Those 4 guys play like one, i am not exaggerating. They play it on the emotional side, but intellectually not the tiniest detail is missing; everything is there, is consistent, is in balance. Vibrato is used, not as parsimoniously as with the Barylli Q, nevertheless it is never a basic underlying tone colour, never thick, it is used as a stylistic device. The sound can only be called opulent.
The Budapest Q recorded LvB's quartets three times, 1st around 1940 on 78rmp shellacs, 2nd around 1955 on mono vinyl LPs, 3rd around 1965 on stereo vinyl LPs.

My preference is the second recording; however which one you choose is a matter of personal taste as all 3 recordings are of the same high artistic quality. TMK, the 1st recordings are partially available on CD on the Sony Classical label, the 2nd recordings are available on some vintage reissue labels, but i do not know the label name. I am content with my shellacs and my vinyl.

Busch quartet: might be an interesting hint for me. I know they are doing a mighty fine job playing Franz Schubert, "Death and the Maiden".

Lindsay Quartet: today i listened to their LvB op131 performance on youtube. Not my cup of tea. Vibrato waaaayyy to thick; <muttering to myself: atleast the primarius and the cellist suffer from narcissism>; to me it seems like they try to perpetually add adornments where there is nothing to add; other than that they are not making many mistakes and certainly no big ones.

Good night
Bernhard

[Philidor]

Thanks very much. Those sound interesting. I've been picking away at this, listening to the recordings I can get my hands on, but still keep finding a cacophony of wobble. It's actually quite a weird experience. The works are so important - in Beethoven's life, in the history of classical music, in their amazing intensity - yet they're slaughtered.

I know what's happening - the arrogance of the alleged artist trying to prove what a sensitive soul he is, rather than playing what Beethoven wrote: respectfully, faithfully, modestly. They're like pre-reformation priests who insist on getting between God and the congregation.

I've reached the stage where I flick the switch, some dreadful warbling noise occurs, only loosely connected to Beethoven's score, I laugh, and turn it off.

Beethoven needs a modern Luther!

[Chris]

They're like pre-reformation priests who insist on getting between God and the congregation.

That's not what they were doing, and I don't think that's what modern performers are doing either. Music has to be interpreted. Otherwise it's just some marks on a page. What is written on the page, even when it is heavily marked as with Beethoven's later works, does not contain nearly enough information to make a musical performance, and it is left to the performer to use his own creativity to bridge that gap. True, you can go back and try to learn about the instruments and performance practices of the day in order to make the most faithful reproduction you can of what the composer may have had in mind, but that may not always give the best results. And there are certainly some performers out there who are more interested in themselves and their own ideas than the music they are performing. But there is that, and then there is just playing the violin with modern technique. I think a lot of what you are ascribing to the former is really just a mixture of the necessary element of interpretation by the musicians and modern string technique.

[Philidor]

I think a lot of what you are ascribing to the former is really just a mixture of the necessary element of interpretation by the musicians and modern string technique.

I've reached the point, listening to the sound made by modern string players attempting these quartets, that they should really leave them alone: that the modern Conservatoire string school sound is incompatible with late Beethoven quartets.

For example, they find it impossible to play a simple four part chord without swinging about all over the place with vibrato. And because their vibrato isn't aligned - wobbling in different directions at different speeds - they produce a cacophony.

It's like having four blancmanches in the room, all wobbling away! If Beethoven had wanted the "multiple blancmanche effect" he'd have written instructions in the score.

But why would anyone want it? Why smear Beethoven with blancmanche? It's bonkers.

[dice45]

you do not need a modern Luther ...

Good afternoon Philidor and all,

... top LvB performances are already there, just collect a few hints look from seasoned music listeners and look for those ancient performances they are recommending . Dial down your sonic/technical expectations a bit and ignore the hiss and pops and let yourself immerse into the music!

You will find that if you ask 5 of those seasoned music aficionados, atleast 4 out of 5 know the Budapest String Quartet and consider it among the top performance if not the best. And i would not be surprised if those aficionados have never met or discussed the matter, they simply agree.

Another thing. Practically all string players play period instruments on records. The just do not play period bows (HUGE difference) and period strings. But i doubt these differences affect what you are complaining about (justified, IMO).

IMO, Beethoven's works do not suffer a musicians ego at all. In that respect they are as critical as Haydn's or Mozart's if not more. But not only the musician must never add anything to a Beethoven work or omit anything, he also is required to have the mental access to the work's inner architecture and make it audible and followable to the listener so that the listener can work his own way into the inner structure, emotionally as well as intellectually.

If the musician is not gifted with that mental access, the period instrument (duplicating the composers inner ear) will not help him. Musician as listener are doomed to participate in a poor performance then.

While i am typing this, i am listening to Paul Badura-Skoda's performance of LvB's Hammerklavier sonata. Very good, this record will stay in my collection. No musicians ego! Period piano, almost as transparent as a harsichord, i love it !!

I compared it with Badura-Skoda's performance on a modern piano which is just sharing the same strengthes (and, admittedly few, flaws, particularly in the 4th mvmnt). I also compared both with Solomon's performance.

Solomon is it. For me, no question. Mental access thing. Captivating my mind. 3rd mvmt is emotionally merging into 4th like i never heard with any else. And more important, 4th mvmt is NEVER coming unglued, the structure and the flow is there, all the time, emotionally, intellectually, rhythmically.

Badura-Skoda's 4th mvmt comes a bit unglued .... and the period instrument did not prevent it, it rather made it a bit more audible, due to its transparency.
Why am i harping out piano examples on a string quartet thread? Because i think that the sonic differences between period and modern instrument are more prominent than with period string instruments, be they played with modern straight or period arced bow. With an arced bow, one can produce chords with up to all 4 strings at very low volumes, but besides that, sonics are much more similar to the modern bow than period pianoforte is to modern piano.

I do not think that playing on an instrument painstakingly duplicating the composers own instrument's sonics is giving the musician a free ride to gaining the necessary mental access to the composer's mind.

Since i left this forum about 10ys ago, i got acquainted with quite a lot of period performances, not all of them were bearable, some were quite painful, some however are just outstanding. Mental access thing, not period instrument thing.
Some Examples:
Otto Büchner: J.S.Bach's Partita D-minor BWV1004, played with an arced bow.
Andrew Manze + Richard Egarr + Jaap ter Linden: J.S.Bach's violin sonatas.
Davitt Moroney, harpsichord: all available J.S.Bach and William Byrd performances.
Wanda Landowska, harpsichord: all available J.S.Bach performances.
George Malcolm, harpsichord: all available J.S.Bach performances.
Isolde Ahlgrimm, harpsichord: all available J.S.Bach and Händel performances.

However, recently i find myself enjoying Ragna Schirmer's performances of Bach's Goldberg variations and Händel's harpsichord suites, played on a modern piano., not on a harpsichord. I enjoy them a lot altough i have Isolde Ahlgrimm's Händel recording and Wanda Landowska's Bach recording in my collection.

I found out why:
I also love Jazz and i often hear other Jazz lovers often state that the musician momentarily spoken of "truly speaks thru his instrument" or that "this XXXphone is his voice". When confronted with such a statement, I always had to agree because i felt the same. As aliving example for that i have a record with two famous saxophonists, Stan Getz playing tenor sax and Gerry Mulligan playing baritone sax. It is an object lesson: On the 1st record side, both guys trade their horns, on the 2nd side both play their own horn. What shall i say, the 1st side is musically bland to the unbearable, like potatoes without sauce without salt, without spices. The second side shows Getz and Mulligan have their lost voices back, just wonderful music.
Ragna Schirmer, playing Händel and Bach on a modern piano, does so having this voice. Her voice is the modern piano, not the harsichord. She admits to have considered the harpsichord for this recording but decided that the modern piano was her thing and she could tell stories with it she couldn't have told with the period instrument.

Methinks that this voice thing is much more important for the musician to express what he feels than playing the instrument properly suitet to the period the music was written in or the composer was thinking in.
However, i admit it is a ticklish question as a Jazz musician expresses his own feelings whereas the musician playing(=reproducing) composed music shoud step back AFA his own feelings are concerned and submit the composer's emotional messages. But one might also consider that this musician has to feel himself what the composer and work is requiring in order to transmit those emotions to the audience. "If you do not feel it, it won't come out of your horn" said Charlie Parker and if a musician playing Beethoven does not feel what Beethoven felt (or apporaching that feeling very closely) then it will not come out of his instrument and feelings will not arrive at the audience.