Customer Reviews

Tchaikovsky: String Quartets; Souvenir de Florence

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I write as a professional cellist and quartet enthusiast, but not someone with a lot of experience with quartets of Tchaikovsky. Recently was listening to the radio in my car to an unknown chamber work with stylistic elements of Mendelssohn, Schubert, late Beethoven and Borodin, though clearly none of the above and still obviously the work of a top master composer. The music was passionate, inventive and gorgeous, the sound of the performing quartet virtuosic, flawlessly in tune and balanced. I arrived at my destination but could not turn it off until finding out who in the world was the composer, and who were the performers? It was Quartet 3 of Tchaikovsky played by the Ying Quartet. So I went to Amazon for reviews of various CD's. The Ying Quartet CD box was an incredible bargain, and on repeated listenings my admiration for these pieces and the prowess of this ensemble has only grown. I will probably want to get the Borodin Quartet recordings, but at least from a technical point of view it's hard to imagine anything better than these performances.

Having just read the Tchaikovsky life story again I realized that I didnt have a recording of the String Quartets. The Ying Quartet certainly play Tchaikovsky with the required Russian heart felt zeal and zing and to have the Souvenir de Florence on the dics is an added bonus. This is a very enjoyable 2 CD set. Charles Fleetwood Dip Mus Brisbane Queensland Australia.