Johannes Brahms: Streichquartette Nr.1 & 3 (CD)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Takacs Quartet

CD

CD (Compact Disc)

Conventional CD, playable with all CD players and computer drives, but also with most SACD or multiplayers.

deliverable within one week (if available from supplier)

Current price: EUR 19.99

Shipping

Artists:: Takacs Quartet
Label:: Hyperion
Year of recording ca.:: 2008
Item number:: 7545047
UPC/EAN:: 0034571175522
Release date:: 21.11.2008

Product-Information:

New recordings by the Takács Quartet on Hyperion have become important landmarks in the musical calendar. This second disc of Brahms string quartets looks set to repeat all the commercial and critical success of their first.

It took twenty years for the famously self-critical Brahms to release his Op 51 string quartets for publication. Despite frequent requests, they were held back until they had reached his requisite standard of perfection. It is clear that Brahms’s struggle with the string quartet medium eventually led him to find an intensely personal language for it, with an unmistakable originality of melody and texture. Op 51 No 1 is both suffused with great musical richness and organically unified, with each idea growing with unerring logic out of the last in a process of continual development, and the main subject of each movement clearly arising out of the same germ.

Having hesitated so long over his first two string quartets, Brahms managed to produce their successor, Op 67, without any protracted birth-pangs, and the fact that the new work was dedicated to a well-known physician prompted him to elaborate on the medical analogy. ‘I am’, he told Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann (the husband of the pianist Emma Brandes, and himself a keen amateur cellist) ‘publishing a string quartet, and may need a doctor for it (as with the first ones). This quartet rather resembles your wife—very dainty, but brilliant! … It’s no longer a question of a forceps delivery; but of simply standing by. There’s no cello solo in it, but such a tender viola solo that you may want to change your instrument for its sake!’

Rezensionen

'This exceptional recording … The earlier work, profound and deliberate, is the ideal companion to the later, more graceful piece' (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)

'The Takács chart the music's undulating emotions with a compelling assuredness … playing of radiant warmth and phrasal sensitivity. Andrew Keener and Simon Eadon work wonders in capturing a warm yet articulate ambience for these physically imposing and richly detailed scores. Strongly recommended' (International Record Review)

'Their approach is alert, texturally clear and passionate … These are admirable performances which I recommend to any prospective buyer … this new Takács reading weighs in at the top end of the many available versions' (BBC Music Magazine)

'The Takacs Quartet extracts every ounce out of a score that pulsates with energy and convey its progression with unerring fluency. Opus 67 carries an ineffable charm. A thoroughly rewarding album' (Northern Echo)

Reviews

Stereo 02/09: "Interessanter ist, wie es den Streichern immer wieder gelingt, den Notentext so plastisch zu interpretieren, dass man glaubt, lebenden Organismen zu begegnen. Das zeigt sich auch auf der vorliegenden Brahms-CD. Etwa im zweiten Satz des c-Moll-Quartetts op.51, 1 mit seinen wunderbar aufblühenden Linien und der gemeinsam geatmeten Phrasierung oder dem anschließenden Allegretto, in dessen Mittelteil das Duett der beiden Geigen wie von menschlichen Stimmen gesungen wirkt. Dabei demonstriert das Takacs Quartet eine so feine und geschmackvolle Rubato-Kultur, wie man sie nur selten zu hören bekommt."