Petersen Quartett

Written between December 1782 and January 1785 the set of six string quartets which Mozart dedicated to Haydn are striking masterpieces, and that he meant them to be so is clear from the printed dedication to his older colleague. ''Dearest friend and famous man,'' he wrote, ''here are… these six sons of mine. They are the fruit of long and laborious effort. One thing has a little encouraged and comforted me: the hope, flatteringly whispered to me, that these musical works might one day be a joy to me… I therefore commend my children to you, hoping that they will not seem totally unworthy of your love.'' Furthermore, Mozart's choice of the medium seems appropriate since he and Haydn had on occasion played together as members of a string quartet, and both surely thought of it as a more refined vehicle for musical thought than the symphony orchestra.

The playing is strongly Romantic in character, emphasizing the violent contrasts and almost painful expressivity of the score; the ensemble can deliver feathery, near-inaudible pianissimos and powerful fortissimos with equal presence. Intonation is more or less flawless, and ensemble work is superb with all five parts often being equally audible with no loss of coordination. On each repeated listen I find new details springing out of the texture. There are occasional miscalculations—the cello pizzicati at the start of the adagio are a bit too prominent, though the reverberant acoustic (recorded in a church) could also be partly to blame—but for the most part everything is well judged.

The playing is strongly Romantic in character, emphasizing the violent contrasts and almost painful expressivity of the score; the ensemble can deliver feathery, near-inaudible pianissimos and powerful fortissimos with equal presence. Intonation is more or less flawless, and ensemble work is superb with all five parts often being equally audible with no loss of coordination. On each repeated listen I find new details springing out of the texture. There are occasional miscalculations—the cello pizzicati at the start of the adagio are a bit too prominent, though the reverberant acoustic (recorded in a church) could also be partly to blame—but for the most part everything is well judged.

First off let me say that Luigi Boccherini was probably the most important (yet nowadays overlooked) contributor to the string quartet genre if sheer number and overall quality are weighed as equals. He wrote around 90 quartets and composed the very first string quartet for a permanent ensemble in the history of music (see my review of his opus 2). This disc begins with Boccherini's last finished quartet which will absolutely blow you away given its context in his life. By the time he wrote it (probably in 1804) he had witnessed the death of his second wife and two of his daughters and was living in poverty, on the verge of death from tuberculosis (May 25, 1805).

These are studio recordings, dating from 1985 and completing a series begun in the late 70s with the C-major quintet and pursued in the early 80s with the 15th quartet and the "Trout" quintet. The "Death and the Maiden" here is not to be confused with the later, live recording made by the ABQ and released in 1998 - which I haven't heard, but which received warm reviews.

The original 1805 version of Beethoven's only opera is a high-adrenaline experience in the hands of the Belgian conductor and his period-instrument band, with Marlis Petersen in the title-role and Maximilian Schmitt as her imprisoned husband. From Leonore (1805) to Fidelio (1814) there were three successive versions of Beethoven’s opera, only the last of which has been in the repertory since the 19th Century. Going against tradition, René Jacobs has chosen to revive the earliest version, reworking the librettos and the spoken dialogue: a genuine tour de force, this still unknown Leonore forms an incomparable musical and dramatic structure requiring exemplary mastery on the part of both orchestra and singers. This landmark recording proves its case in every respect.

Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio (1814), had a difficult birth, and this recording allows us to hear the composer’s first thoughts when the work was unveiled as Leonore in 1805. The most striking thing about Leonore is that it contains a lot more music and certain characters—most notably Marzelline—have a more important role. The later version is considerably tauter, but there’s much to enjoy here, not least René Jacobs’ natural dramatic instincts. Marlis Petersen and Maximilian Schmitt make an impressive central couple while Robin Johannsen is a delightful Marzelline. The other roles are strongly cast, making a powerful case for this Beethoven rarity.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born in Hamburg in 1809 and died in Leipzig at the age of 38. He was very early musically gifted. Mendelssohn performed in public at the age of 9 and composed already from the age of 11. As a pupil of Friedrich Zelter, who was a friend of Goethe, Mendelssohn composed at the age of 17 his first masterpiece: the Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream. This is included in the extensive CD box as well as a large number of other known or less known pieces by him. The String Quartet in F Minor Op. 80 - written in memory of his beloved sister Fanny - which was recorded in this collection by the Aurora String Quartet is undoubtedly one of his most beautiful works. The Gächinger Kantorei with Helmuth Rilling, the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, the Bartholdy Piano Quartet, the Heidelberger Sinfoniker with Thomas Fey, Ana-Marija Markovina and other renowned interpreters and orchestras can also be heard.