131

"The virtuosity and unanimity of the VPO strings command the highest respect. The grave opening fugue, the brilliant scherzo and the impassioned finale sound terrific … a fabulous disc." - Gramophone

Founded in 1992, the New York-based Brentano Quartet is known for its interpretations combining perfect technique and matchless musicality. Those qualities are even more obvious in this series of late Beethoven quartets with this first volume bringing together the Op. 127 and 131. This pure crystal of intelligence and brilliance will doubtless constitute a milestone.

Beethoven: (orch. Mitropoulos/Bernstein). String Quartets in C sharp minor, Op. 131; and in F major, Op. 135,
Wiener Philharmoniker; Leonard Bernstein conductor
Classical | 1 CD | EAC Rip | 347 Mb | FLAC+LOG+M3U+Cue | Full scans | 4 RS links
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon

The CD has the enormous advantage of prefacing Op. 131 with Beethoven's last Quartet, Op. 135 in F, recorded in what were presumably comparable circumstances in the Musikverein in Vienna in September 1989, less than a year before Bernstein's death. Although Toscanini recorded the second and third movements of Op. 135 with the strings of the NBC Symphony in 1938 it could be argued that this in many ways more intimate music responds less well to performance by an orchestral string section; but listen to the VPO playing the scherzo and the Lento which follows it and see if you are not persuaded otherwise. This is a fabulous disc.
R.G. Gramophone, November 1992