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Beethoven - The Complete String Quartets / Alban Berg Quartet | |||||||||
  | 80% Recommended by our customers. Label: EMI Classics Catalog: Music Release date: 1999-11-16 Media: Audio CD discs number: 7 Ean: 0724357360623 Upc: 724357360623  Tip: compare prices with similar classical music CDsArtists:
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 Written on March 22, 2008 Summary: Budget priced, in a strange order, but excellent A great job by the Berg quartet. I started with the old Columbia LP of the Budapest's version of the final quartets, but it would be a false note for the Berg quartet to try to recapture the feeling of disaster that pervades the Budapest versions, made as these were during the world war period; no "l'art pour l'art" hot air could convince me that music (a most social art, indeed sociological in Adorno) can be independent in its making from horror. Instead the Berg quartet seems to me to be more technically proficient, not that I give too much of a damn about this; I have never understood why we think we deserve the first rate reproduction at all times, and the second or third rate reproduction can reveal much more (I'm thinking in this connection of the version of *Kunst der Fuge* made for Naxos by a guy who used to play in my church, Wolfgang Rubsam: there seems to this layman to be a lot of Rubsambato in it but it reproduces for the modern listener the risk of dissonance implicit in fugueing tunes). To meet the price point, EMI has the quartets in a completely screwed up, if not kittywumpus, order, probably to reduce the disk count. But when you buy the CDs for immediate copying to iPod, you can then put them in the "right" order, by quartet number within opus number. Be advised, though, that the superb liner notes mention that the opus and number order doesn't reflect Beethoven's order of composing the quartets, but give the correct order. Listening in either order is a long, spiritual journey, because LVB used the quartet as a laboratory for risky experiments that an orchestra wouldn't be able to play. You discover the origin of the slow movements, the visions of eternity, in the late quartets in the Rasumovsky quartets and in general how Beethoven, like Shakespeare as seen by Gary Wells, didn't finish "finished" works once and for all, but was troubled by aporias and untried alternatives and would screw around with them until the late quartets, when it appeared that Beethoven decided to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and used the quartet for distinctly Modernist experiments. Modernist, in the sense of clearing out the concert hall as the more typical music "lovers" fled in horror in the middle of the Grosse Fuge, in which he gave himself license to cock a snook at a society of pompous fools that had taken his best and given him jack s*t. Adorno (yeah, Adorno) felt that you can't understand music except as a dialectical logic. This is the opposition of thesis and antithesis and the production of a synthesis containing both, in a nondialectical formulation which drops most of the dialectic on the floor: the dialectic has to be lived and may be sheer Blarney: but it pervades our reception of all music worth more than one listening. The fact is that I stopped being able to listen to David Bowie's Helden (Heroes) despite this being my favorite rock and roll anthem, but never fast forward past the Grosse Fuge. In the late quartets, the magnificence (sublimity) of utter loss of control somehow contained is followed by slow movements which constitute sincere and loving apologies for smashing the crockery. Beethoven's irreconcilability to himself and the unacceptability of being raised by an alcoholic (which is what his Dad was) was also his relation to his family and society as a whole. It makes great cinema as two recent movies (Immortal Beloved and Copying Beethoven) have shown. My fat pal Adorno was puzzled by the theological implications of the late Beethoven and never managed to stop writing about it, his writings being themselves a search for the solution to this mystery: Bach is only with difficulty shoehorned into an ad maiorem dei gloriam Procrustean framework, and the theology of the Dangkegesang is something pre-Christian, a sacrifice for a fleeting sense of material well-being. Pain isn't celebrated in the late quartets. Beethoven didn't go back to Bach, but like most advanced musicians of his day, including Mendelssohn, he was fascinated by "learned" music, music that almost (but not quite) is meant to be read in a score, and not played at all by a cafe orchestra...or if played by a Wolfgang Rubsam, to be played, as he plays, without excessive respect for the text, and some abandon. Frank Zappa said that most rock and roll writing is written by those who cannot write for those who cannot read. Most classical music reviews on Amazon seem to affirm this also for classical music and its dialectical potential: on the one hand, one wants to shake the theological respect people have for classical concerts out of them by farting loudly, on the other hand, one is enraged by the lack of respect underlying the excessive respect (a lack of respect shown by the actual material treatment of the members of actual symphony orchestras, neatly and dialectically answered by their alienation, which was noted early on by Aaron Copland). Oh Freunde, nicht dieses Tonen. Enough! Ess muss sein. Written on March 7, 2008 Summary: Beautiful Music, Bargain Price What a fantastic set of cds! The recordings are superb. I have listened to this set repeatedly and it is always fresh! The Alban Berg Quartet plays the music with sensitivity and polish. I listen to the music with my headphones and am transported to a different place. It's just me and the quartet...and the music! The price for this journey is less than a good meal at a fine restaurant. If you like the idea of enjoying hours of music at a price that is astounding, this is the box set for you! Go ahead order the set-you deserve it. Written on December 24, 2007 Summary: Awesome! This set is top of the line and the price is unbelievably small for 7 CDs. The nitpicking reviews that often accompany collections of this kind are usually submitted by people with little appreciation for the music at hand and only interested in impressing readers with some pseudo-intellectual musicological viewpoint. These Berg Quartet renderings are wonderful. They are faithful to the music from a technical side and filled with pathos, joy, humor and spirit where Beethoven undoubtedly intended. The string quartet may be the most difficult chamber ensemble to write for, given the similarity of tonal colors of the instruments. Combine Beethoven's genius with the skills of the Berg Quartet players, and you have a set of recordings to appreciate and enjoy for a lifetime. And a great bargain to boot!! Written on December 17, 2007 Summary: Great Performance - Half Price What's not to like? Great performance for 1/2 the price of the Italiano (actually my favorite) and 1/3 the price of the Emerson. Written on September 12, 2007 Summary: Beautiful performances and recordings--"better than a bargain" Beautiful performances and recordings of the Beethoven String quartets. Have listened to discs 1-4, 7. Last night listened transfixed by opus 132, 3rd Mvt. (Molto Adagio; Andante). I thought, "this one movement was worth the price of the discs." No single performance of any of the great works can encompass all approaches nor reveal every nuance; but the performances that I have heard on these discs are solid and beautiful. These may not be the only recordings of Beethoven's string quartets that you will want to own; but they are a great addition to your audio library. |
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| Our price | $27.97 | $37.97 | $66.98 | $33.97 | $23.97 |
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| Catalog | Music | Music | Music | Music | Music |
| Release date | 1999-11-16 | 2000-11-07 | 1998-10-20 | 2000-11-07 | 1999-11-09 |
| Media | Audio CD | Audio CD | Audio CD | Audio CD | Audio CD |
| discs number | 7 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 5 |
| Format | - | Box set, Limited Edition, Original recording reissued | Box set | Box set, Limited Edition, Original recording reissued | Box set |
| Ean | 0724357360623 | 0724357389525 | 0724357291224 | 0724357390521 | 0028946313725 |
| Upc | 724357360623 | 724357389525 | 724357291224 | 724357390521 | 028946313725 |
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