Beethoven String Quartets

The Doric String Quartet is firmly established as one of the leading quartets of its generation, receiving enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics around the globe. Celebrating their 25th anniversary, the Quartet here embarks on a significant new recording project – the complete string quartets by Beethoven. This first volume combines works from Beethoven’s early, middle, and late period.

Beethovens String Quartets are the undisputed sine qua non of the string quartet genre, with all other works in this form, as well as the ensembles themselves who must inevitably perform and record them, measured against this body of work and its associated recordings. The Philharmonia Quartet of Berlin, four members of the BPO, has been termed a ""top-flight-ensemble"" by the Chicago Tribune, possessing a heart melting sound (Boston Globe). An ensemble of thirty years standing, the PQB has established itself as a highly regarded, standard-setting body, and one in great demand worldwide.

Transcriptions of chamber works to orchestral works have been interesting asides for composers for a long time - whether the transcription are alterations of a composer's own songs or chamber works to full orchestral size or those of other composers for which the transcriber had a particular affinity. Stokowski's transcriptions of Bach's works are probably the most familiar to audiences. The two transcriptions on this recording are the creations Gustav Mahler and his election to transcribe the quartets of Beethoven and Schubert is not surprising: Mahler 'transcribed' many of his own songs into movements or portions of movements for his own symphonies. Listening to Mahler's transcriptions of these two well known quartets - Franz Schubert's String Quartet in D Minor 'Death and the Maiden' and Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet in F Minor 'Serioso' - provides insight into both the orginal compositions and the orchestration concepts of Gustav Mahler. The themes of these two works would naturally appeal to Mahler's somber nature. Mahler naturally extends the tonal sound of each of these transcriptions by using the full string orchestra and in both works it is readily apparent that his compositional techniques within string sections are ever present.

Around the time the Rasumovski Quartet's were written, Beethovens favorite violinist, Ignaz von Schuppanzigh had begun the very first professional string quartet, thus providing Beethoven with an ideal laboratory for testing new string quartet ideas. Before this, string quartet playing was more something that happened in living rooms. Amateurs of, grantedly, good musical quality would entertain themselves among friends by playing string quartets. By writing for the Schuppanzigh quartet, which moreover would perform in public concert series, Beethoven became involved with a wholly new setting.

These are hardly the Hagen Quartett's first recordings of Beethoven's quartets. The group made its first Beethoven recordings back in 1997 with the Fugue for String Quartet, Op. 137, and the original version of Opus 18/6 for DG's Complete Beethoven Edition. But those early recordings, while breathtakingly good, cannot compare with later recordings of Beethoven's canonical quartets, climaxing with this coupling of Opus 127 and Opus 132, except in the sense that the same excellent ensemble made all of them.

This new album of Beethovens late String Quartets by the prestigious Tetzlaff Quartett offers a fitting tribute to Beethovens 250th anniversary year. These monumental works which are given fresh interpretations by the quartet are among the greatest achievements in the history of Western art music written by a composer who had already largely lost contact with the world. When writing his final String Quartets (Op. 127135) Beethoven was quickly becoming increasingly ill and understood that he would never be able to recover fully.

Few chamber music groups have as proud a history as the Smetana Quartet, or a history that evokes as much nationalistic passion. Founded during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, the group's very existence was an anomaly during an era when any manifestation of Czech nationalism was outlawed. They survived into the post-Nazi era, and went on to an acclaimed international performing career, making some of the finest chamber music recordings of the 1950s and 1960s…