Customer Reviews

Mozart: Six Quartets Dedicated to Haydn

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3 star:		(1)
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I love the Guarneri Quartet. I have had the privilege of hearing them live on multiple ocassions. But even at such a discount price I would skip these recordings. The sound is muddled. If you compare these discs to the Alban Berg recordings on Teldec, you will hear a truly significant difference in quality. These are some of the most beautiful Quartets in the world. Buy the Berg.

I remember an exhortation for improved ensemble from my undergraduate years. I was playing wind music for small forces, and the conductor said, "Let's play together the way accomplished chamber groups play, you know, the way string quartets always play together perfectly." I didn't listen to string quartets then and didn't know how they played together, but I took his word for it and tried harder for better ensemble. He was talking about string quartets that play like the Guarneri Quartet. I have several recordings of string quartets by other ensembles that are literally great. They are passionate performances by four virtuosi playing together. I listen to them over and over. But the musical integration of the Guarneri Quartet is on another level altogether. You can take the four greatest string players in the world and put them together for a night and they won't play nearly as well as a quartet of conservatory graduate students who have been together for three years. When you play together that long, you cease to be individual musicians and become a unit. Imagine four superb virtuosi who have played together without a change of personnel for 32 years. That's the Guarneri Quartet. You don't hear four musicians. You hear eight arms of one organism playing four instruments. And here they are playing Mozart. Listen online to their performances of Mozart, Ravel and Dvorak with a different cellist on Saint Paul Sunday. Their lilt is sublime and their ensemble is still uncanny. But these quartets were recorded with the original members. The Saint Paul Sunday performance was good advertising. I heard the broadcast and bought five Guarneri Quartet CD's in the next 90 days.

This was a very interesting recording of the Mozart "Haydn" Quartets for me. Particularly the last two movements of K.421. I have been used to a very sprightly and exciting interpretation of those movements. This recording showed me how graceful and flowing those movements can be. The playing of the Guarneri Quartet calls to mind the grandeur of the Ballrooms and Courts of Mozart's time.

I recently attended a concert of the Guarneri where I learned they were releasing this music again. I couldn't wait to order so that I could enjoy the Guarneri at my leisure. This set did not disappoint. If you can't have the live performance, this is an excellent substitute.

These 3 CDs are a great addition to my music collection. I would recommend them to anyone who loves clasical music.