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Eugene Drucker, Philip Seltzer, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola; David Finckel, cello.
This two-CD collection of the six string quartets of Bela Bartok won the Grammy Awards for best classical recording and best chamber music performance in 1989, the year after its issuance. Since then the Emerson Quartet has won six more Grammys for best chamber music performance (1993, Ives; 1997, Beethoven; 2000, Shostakovich; 2005, Mendelssohn; 2006, Grieg, Sibelius and Nielsen; and 2007, Janacek and Martinu) and a second Grammy for best classical album (2000, Shostakovich). To say that this music is well played is an understatement: it’s exceptionally well played by an ensemble known for its ability to play mellow, angular and even harsh as the music dictates. It’s the mellowness that surprises on this album: it humanizes and makes more accessible Bartok’s often prickly music, a music of many changes and delightful surprises. Alas, I own only one other album by the Emerson String Quartet, its recording of the Debussy and Ravel string quartets. I have listened to that album so many times that I can sing along with parts of it. I don’t expect to sing along with Bartok, though there are portions of movements here that are eminently lyrical. I do however expect to listen to these two discs many times with pleasure.
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Cadmium yellow
息をもつかせぬ快演奏。1989 Gramophone Record of the Yearは伊達じゃない。
Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on January 19, 2018
