Customer Reviews

Beethoven The Middle Quartets in Concert at the Library of Congress 1940-1960

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These middle quartets of Beethoven, recorded here by the great Budapest Quartet between 1940 and 1960, in my opinion set the standard of playing for the middle quartets (as do their other recordings for the early and late quartets). The playing here is clean and incredibly precise, thus leaving the listener with a very satisfied feeling. Despite the fact that the sound quality is not quite up to the level of recordings being made today, one can still quite certainly tell that artistically and musically speaking, the recording is maybe the finest ever, due to the Budapest Quartet's musical intelligence and overall immaculate playing. I am happy to recommend this recording as the definitive set of the middle quartets, played by true champions of Beethoven.

Honestly, I had never heard of The Budapest before, I love classical music more and more these days and was searching for some options here on Amazon. This was one of the selections highlighted on my recommendations page and I listened to it and decided I would like it for Christmas. I recieved it and I have fallen in love with the Quartet...they play Beethoven so beautifully. I can't hear it enough, I find their playing to be very uplifting and relaxing at the same time. I also like how the interviews with the members of the Budapest....it gives great historical insight on the quartet and this time itself in history. I would recommend this CD to anyone who likes classical music in more simplistic settings. You feel as if you are sitting in on one of the concerts at the Library itself. Very authentic sound and ambience. Will always be a favorite of mine.

As much as I love the Budapesters I couldn't get past the quality of the library recordings. You cannot hear the instruments articulate very well in some parts. I don't know if this is because the library has poor acoustics or the microphones where placed incorrectly. You loose some notes and even whole phrases at times in a blurr. The studio recordings are far superior in sound quality. If you already have these quartets in a modern recording and just want to add the superiority of the Budapesters then I would recommend this set so long as you know that there are sound limitations. If this is your first buy of these quartets I recommend buying the scattered and incomplete Sony Essential Classics recordings of the Budapesters playing these pieces. I know the CD generation will not like the library recordings, but if you are used to listening to music with a grain of salt for the quality of the recording then you can enjoy the library recordings.

If good, consistent sound quality is an absolute requirement for you in a recording, this isn't the set for you. The recording quality here is at best inconsistent and is positively poor at times.

The performances, however, are sublime, mature yet strongly felt, wonderfully phrased and with impeccable dynamics. The members of the Budapest remain faithful, in my opinion, to Beethoven's intent while producing performances bearing the impress of four very powerful musical intellects.

It's hard to decide whether these performances are powerful or just fast and glib, as some detractors say they are. The Buddas take these works at a faster clip than we are used to, and as a result sometimes some of the nuance is missing. It could also be argued they are sometimes guilty of using sheer "firepower" rather than interpretational depths in climactic moments. That's what the Jeggy crowd maintain. They compare these fleet performances to the high speed Beethoven of John Eliot Gardiner, who for me is just too superficial with his "rethinks" of Beethoven symphonies. But to me there's more meat on the bone, more than just briskness. The Budapests dig into the music with intense--almost too intense--feeling sometimes, even more in these live recordings than in their studio efforts. "High voltage" is such a cliche, but it's appropriate. These interpretations are interesting to me because while I find I don't always agree with them afterwards when I'm reflecting on the performances, while they're playing I'm too swept away to detach and critique. I'll agree that with the Buddas you often don't get certain nuances and intricacies, but to my ears they substitute their own brand of style and insightl whether you agree with it is another matter. With Jeggy, on the other hand, all I hear is speed and clarity--not bad in itself, but there's more to Beethoven's symphonies than speed and clarity, and I find his approach rather reductionist (which is different from small-scale and "less bloated," which his defenders would argue he is).

So this has turned out to be almost as much of a review of Gardiner as of the Budapests, but the short of it is these are fast, charged, "thin" performances, with edge, fire, and verve. Some niceties of phrasing get lost in their high-speed approach, and you'll definitely need additional recordings (Amadeus, Vegh, Julliard, Busch, Yale) to get a fuller appreciation of these, arguably among the very greatest masterworks in the string quartet literature. But these do have style and conviction--not the last word, not the first word, but definitely a set worth having. The live sound, as others have noted, can be tough on the ears. These are historic recordings, with all the maddening limitations that that moniker often implies. So it's probably best to get familiar with these works through other recordings before listening to these, but they should be part of your Beethoven collection.