Customer Reviews

Complete String Quartets

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4 star:		(1)
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If you like your Mendelssohn mellow and refined, this may well be the set for you. Certainly, some of these works are genteel and angst free. This is especially true of the First and Fifth Quartets, and in these works and the slightly more dramatic No. 2, the Ysaye Quartet are at their best. They're at their very best in No. 5, which in its easy melodiousness and bubbling good spirits is like Hausmusic, the stuff 19th-century composers turned out for performance by amateurs in the home. Except that Mendelssohn's difficult music requires four first-rate performers. The last movement especially is Mendelssohn at his most smilingly infectious, and the Ysaye are hard to beat here.

In Quartet No. 4 (No. 2 of Opus 44), however, they are anything but passionate about Mendelssohn's appasionata first movement, and they are almost as low key in my favorite among the quartets, No. 3 (Opus 44 No. 1). A comparison with the Aurora Quartet, also at budget price on Naxos, is instructive. The Aurora throw themselves into the music with what seems like dangerous abandon, except that they maintain rock-solid intonation and hit every note like a master carpenter driving home a nail. The Ysaye slow down appreciably for the minor-key second melody and for parts of the development section. Their playing is so good you hardly notice, but they take about three minutes longer in this movement than do the Aurora. The result is that the music is seriously lacking in the elan it should have in a truly fine performance. But this is perhaps the only outright disappointment in the set.

Again, the Ysaye's performance of the Opus 80, Mendelssohn's final and greatest quartet, is moving when heard in isolation, but compare it with the white-hot intensity of the Aurora Quartet and you realize something is missing.

So for truly compelling readings of Nos. 3, 4, and 6, you'll have to look elsewhere. But for refined playing and an approach that brings out the Gemutlich charm of Mendelssohn, this is a very good set indeed. In terms of recording, at least, it is superior to the Aurora set, which lacks body and detail because of an overly resonant venue. Still, I'll return more often to the Aurora's performance of Nos. 3 and 6, for I think they have the measure of these two very different quartets.

Not only are the discs bargain-priced, but they are well-packaged with informative liner notes. The music is exceptional, and like much of Mendelssohn's chamberworks, it is not as celebrated as, say, the "Italian" Symphony or the Violin Concerto. However, the music spans much of Mendelssohn's composing life. The two early quartets, 1 & 2, Are written in a distinctly Beethovenian style with notable homage paid to Bach (there is a fair amount of counterpoint in the early pieces). The 3 middle quartets, op.44, are more in a classical vein than the earlier works, but show the composers skill with the style. The last quartet, written after the death of his sister, is a heart-rending masterwork on par with Mendelssohn's larger-scale masterpieces.
Being a fan of Mendelssohn, I could not resist the purchase. his scoring for strings is simply beautiful and that holds with these works. If you are interested in Mendelssohn through his popular works, you will find these works very accessible, and they will hold your attention. At this price it is worth a look.

While I have criticized a few of the releases in Universal's new "Trio" series in my previous reviews, the vast majority of these 3CD sets are important reissues. Take for example, Mendelssohn's Complete String Quartets by Quatuor Ysaye (Christophe Giovaninetti, violin I; Luc-Marie Aguera, violin II; Miguel da Silva, viola; Michel Poulet, cello). Prior to this release, there were no competing titles from the major labels, and none at all available at a budget-price from the independents save Naxos. But filling a void in the catalog is worthless unless the performances are good, and rest assured that these digital recordings from 1993 & '96 hit their mark. If the "Trio" series continues to focus its efforts on releases such as this, it will be very successful.

Who today, apart from Mendelssohn specialists can claim to know more than one or two of his chamber works ? For better or worst, 160 years after Mendelssohn's death his chamber music remains isolated into a bubble of forgetfulness hovered by a mysterious and undeserved obscurantism.

To be honest, his chamber music is charming, inspired but never reaches the depth of Beethoven, for instance. Nevertheless, it should be not fair to disregard it just because it. The huge empty in the chamber music genre -as consequence of the death of Beethoven and Schubert- was significant. Only Schumann, Brahms Mendelssohn and in lesser degree Chopin, and thereafter Dvorak, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Faure, Sibelius, Saint Saens, Cesar Frank, Anton Arensky, Anton Rubinstein and Grieg contributed to expand in a good way the diffusion of this lovable genre. In fact the genre of string quartets is probably the most captivating and engaging of all his chamber works. And I am aware about the interpretative qualities of this superb quartet.

In sum and given the derisive prize of this set, you shouldn't miss this unbelievable bargain, taking into account what you are buying.

Recommended.