Customer Reviews

Beethoven: The Late String Quartets Nos 12-16

5 star:		(7)
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Lindsay string quartet aren't the world's most perfect quartet technically, but their heart is in the right place, and here they deliver the performance of their lifetime. Music making here is so absolutely marvellous that it is hard to describe it in words. Tempos are perfectly right in every movement. Lindsays take real risks all the time. They deliberately sacrifice the beauty of the sound to bring the right character to the music. Take the seventh movement of the op. 131 or the second movement of op. 135. The playing here is not polished at all, but the charachter of the music is perfectly right to the last bar. Slow movements are, alongside the Vegh quartet's performances, the most beautifully played and felt Beethoven I have ever heard on record. Their Beethoven is a very wise, insightsful and searching man. That is how I see this great person too. Lindsays are absolutely perfect in every way. Their tone is perfect for this music and these recordings will bring you nothing but the pure joy. Great.

I have several versions of the Beethoven Late Quartets including the Alban Berg and Guarneri sets. The Lindsays are the ones I keep playing however. Their interpretations bring extra depth to these profound works. These works require repeated listenings so that one can begin to hear and grasp the sublime wonders that lie within. The Lindsays help illuminate the road to discovery, as they seem to understand all the nuances. The natural tempos, the conversations amongst the players and the musicality that is inherent in each phrase make for a rewarding experience. Highly recommended!

I rate Beetoven's late quartets as the most beautiful music ever written. Especially, I'm fond of op 131. Lindsays and Vegh like none else capture the moment in this music bringing the true soul of Beethoven to us. Like one other reviewer said : I am more happy person because I know Beethoven's late quartets and Lindsays. I trully agree with that.

Most beautiful music making from the Lindsays. They get much closer to the heart & soul of Beethoven than Alban Berg Quartett. The playing is spacious & warmly recorded.

The Lindsays bring you into the special world of late Beethoven like no other ensemble. I'd agree with the previous reviewer that they aren't technically perfect. But listen to the striving sonorities of the Grosse Fuge, of the throbbing emotions of the Cavatina in Op. 130, or the joyful finale of Op.135, and see if you complain. The Lindsays introduced me to late Beethoven many years ago, and I'm still waiting to hear any greater expression of the human spirit.

Keeping in mind these performances may be placed in a triumphant third place after The Budapest Quartet (in their forties) and Vegh (both performances from the fifties and early seventies) that is by itself an extraordinary ackonwledgement for that ensamble.
The articulated voices and the rhythmic pulsations is first order, the Beethovenian harsh dissonances are expressed with absolute conviction and artistic commitment.
Highly recommended.

Beethoven's late quartets are the most extrordinary music ever written, the kind of music that makes me feel richer every time I listen to it. This thing will never die. These Lindsay Quartet recordings will never die. Thank you Takacs, Talich, Vegh, Italiano and Lindsays for creating the multivocality and for creating the full picture and enriching our lives.