126 CD / L. v. Beethoven, String Quartets · Vol. 2 of 4 op. 59 no. 1 – 3, op. 74

7 reviews for 126 CD / L. v. Beethoven, String Quartets · Vol. 2 of 4 op. 59 no. 1 – 3, op. 74

1. Ensemble – 1. February 2007

   True Sovereignty
   Beethoven’s F minor String Quartet, Op. 95, while thematically belonging to the Rasumovsky quartets and thus to the composer’s “middle” period, already ventures content-wise into the borderlands of his late string quartets. It is therefore only consistent to separate this merely 20-minute work from its predecessors in a recording and perform it together with the late E-flat or A minor quartet. The Auryn Quartet takes this step in the present audio DVD – and impresses with a solid, thoroughly successful recording. Already released as a stereo CD, it was award-winning, receiving among others the “Classical Internet Award.” With the new technology enabling “moving real surround sound,” the listening pleasure multiplies: with a sufficient number of speakers connected, the sound can be made to “move” in a circle. A feature that suits these works with their indeterminate direction, their compressed brevity, and philosophical clarity. The Auryn musicians perform the late Beethoven as he must be played: austere, severe, yet at the same time imbued with an effortlessness that generates true sovereignty.
   Rafael Sala

2. Pizzicato – 1. September 2005

   A Masterpiece
   With four double CD or DVD-Audio recordings, the Auryn Quartet from Cologne has completed the complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets. We were able to listen to Volumes 1 and 3. These recordings and interpretations can be counted among the best available today.
   Technically: The new surround recording technique gives the instrumentalists a presence and immediacy rarely heard and also creates a balance between them of the highest subtlety. Above all, however, it confirms the quality of the playing: there is no trembling or hesitation; every note is natural and rounded.
   The long playing time of the DVD recording results from the fact that the works are recorded in two different formats, Real Surround Sound on the one hand and Moving Real Surround Sound on the other: TACET is guiding the future.
   Interpretatively: The Auryn Quartet achieves a new, truly “contemporary” interpretation of Beethoven’s quartet music.
   In the early quartets of Op. 18, the extremely precise and clear articulation and accentuation stand out. The engagement with the score is optimal, and the attention to detail is astonishing. Yet this does not impede the flow of the playing, while the joy of the four musicians becomes a listening pleasure.
   In Volume 3, there is no attempt to smooth out the complexity and even austerity of the Quartetto serioso, Op. 95, and the late quartets, Op. 127 and Op. 132. On the contrary, these elements are laid bare. Beethoven is thus revealed anew before us in his struggle for appropriate expression, for mastering large forms, and for shaping complexity with new means.
   Matthias Lingenfelder and Jens Oppermann, violin; Stewart Eaton, viola; and Andreas Arndt, cello, play brilliantly and with authority. They know how to listen to each other and convey both the complexity and the timeless beauty of the music (cf. the Adagio from Op. 127). Their own enthusiasm is also contagious, for as a listener, one can only share it and recognize with full admiration that the musicians and recording engineers have accomplished a masterpiece.
   GW

3. Stereoplay – 1. June 2005

   The complete recording of Beethoven’s string quartets by the Auryn Quartet is slowly approaching its conclusion. This third installment ventures into the realm of the late works – the very cosmos that still represents the pinnacle of all quartet art. What the previous installments already demonstrated is confirmed once again here: the Auryns’ Beethoven now stands in the front rank of the competition. In terms of perfection, it can certainly measure up to a top-tier production such as that of the Emerson Quartet, although the latter retains an edge in emotional density. This is especially evident in the performance of the slow movements, such as the unfathomable Molto Adagio of Op. 132. Here, behind the flawlessly beautiful sonority, one senses the subtle, spiritual element that gives this engagement with Beethoven’s late works its weight and distinctive character. Of course, this also applies to the fast movements, which never descend into mere athleticism. A Beethoven seen on a grand scale and reshaped with grandeur.
   Alfred Beaujean

4. The best new recordings from North America – 1. April 2005

   In those concluding installments of their complete Beethoven cycle, the Auryn Quartet, who take their name from the amulet that grants intuition in Michael Ende′s fantasy, The Neverending Story, have put forth a breathtakingly new and illuminating proposition. Instead of presenting the music as late Beethoven, riddled with awkward enharmonic changes and thorny technical obstacles, they play them as mainstream classical music of great confidence and power. In so doing, they have rethought numerous commonly accepted interpretive solutions. A few examples will have to suffice.

   The way the Auryn embrace the composer′s idiosyncratic use of clockwork elements, like the triplets in bar 48 of the first movement of Op. 132, transforms notions of whet drives the Beethoven machine. And the overwhelming positive attitude with which they play the Meno mosso e moderato in the Grosse Fuge proves that a quartet can master this superhuman movement. There are also deaply profound individual touches, as when Matthias Lingenfelder′s tone breaks before the "Beklemmt" section of the Cavatina in Op. 130.

   Beyond these moments of epiphany, the Auryns possess a sense of latent power that creates a superb kind of musical tension, a rare ability to phrase with a kind of radiant Italianate grace and in hypnotic big pictures arches, and to do so as with one voice. Unlike the Takáks, whose late quartets set has just been released on Decca, there is no sense that this is a first violinist and "the others", or that the music is a series of (occasionally dysfunctional) fragments, however brillantly or inimitably played.

   At times, the Auryn performances seem so close to what one sees unfolding on the printed score that it is possible to believe you are hearing directly what Beethoven had in mind. Perhaps only the Busch Quartet had this kind of liberating vision.

   Working in the Cologne studio of DeutschlandRadio with two Neumann M49 microphones, Andreas Spreer has captured the Auryn in what sounds like one of those science fiction continuums where space stretches to fit time, the sound rich and detailed without being analytical, the lower strings of the viola and cello having a wonderful grainy quality to them.

   There is no shortage of great and famous Beethoven Cycles, but there are no performances such as these. For me, this is now the set to beat.

   Laurence Vittes

5. Klassik heute – 11. February 2005

   Top Rating 10 for Artistic Quality, Sound Quality, and Overall Impression

   Igor Stravinsky called them his “most unshakable articles of musical faith,” considering them “indispensable for the paths and goals of art”: the late string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven. Two of these unfathomable, enigmatic, and exhilarating works – E-flat major, Op. 127, and A minor, Op. 132 (supplemented by the middle and mediating Quartetto serioso, Op. 95) – are interpreted by the Auryn Quartet in recordings from recent years. And without exaggeration, one can say: the four musicians achieve the square of the circle. With lovingly meticulous attention to detail, they have developed a reflective, well-tested, thoroughly considered reading of these compositions, yet they have not lost their sense of wonder. Infectious enthusiasm and a communicative joy in discovery fuel their interpretive imagination and draw the listener into the spell of a shared musical adventure.
   Of course, no happiness can be complete with compositions of such utopian ambition. The art of subtle transitions, the flowing, breathing playing, seems to come more naturally to the Auryn Quartet than the compressed passion of the F minor quartet, Op. 95, or the timeless, otherworldly serenity of the “Hymn of Thanksgiving” from Op. 132. On the other hand, in Beethoven’s A minor quartet, the musicians conjure utterly wondrous soundscapes of almost surreal beauty, raising the music to a state of feverish ecstasy. Their recording of the E-flat major quartet, Op. 127, deserves nothing but the highest praise, without reservation, for in every detail they follow Beethoven from beginning to end: from the opening Maestoso chords, delivered with genuine enthusiasm – diving straight into the opulent sound – to the stark, musical provocations of the finale. They remain on Beethoven’s trail, even in the remotest heights of conceptual freedom and boundlessness. So close to the ideal of completely resolved, clairvoyant music-making as in the Adagio of Op. 127, the Auryn Quartet moves only rarely.
   Wolfgang Stähr

6. Wetzlarer Neue Zeitung – 9. February 2005

   Rating: “Very Good”
   In the third part of its complete recording of Ludwig van Beethoven’s string quartets (1770–1827), the well-established Auryn Quartet presents the works in F minor, Op. 95; E-flat major, Op. 127; and A minor, Op. 132. Matthias Lingenfelder and Jens Oppermann (violin), Stewart Eaton (viola), and Andreas Arndt (cello) succeed in this excellent recording in making Beethoven’s late compositions fascinatingly alive despite their austerity. Although, even after almost 200 years, the composer’s assessment that these quartets are not suitable for a wide audience may still hold true, it is all the more worthwhile to listen to them repeatedly and become thoroughly acquainted with them. And it is precisely this that the Auryn Quartet’s recording invites listeners to do, to a high degree.
   Klaus Andrießen

7. hermann – das magazin aus cottbus – 1. February 2005

   (...) Once again, an impressive synthesis of individual insight and strict adherence to the score.
   Maria C.