Beethoven, Verdi: String Quartets

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Over the years, various composers and conductors have taken selected chamber works of other composers and transcribed them for larger ensembles (string, chamber, even full-sized orchestra). The Barshai transcriptions of Shostakovich's 8th and 10th string quartets into two very famous chamber symphonies are perhaps the best (they also had the composer's blessing). Here, we have a Beethoven string quartet translated by Dimitri Mitropoulos and a Verdi string quartet translated by Arturo Toscanini into bright and energetic performances. Andre Previn's handling of the Beethoven is particularly illuminating. You can hear Wagner and Strauss to come, even though they are 75 years away. Toscanini's sculpting of the Verdi String Quartet in E minor reflects the great conductor's devotion to the full range of the strings. It hardly betrays its original, and much limited, framework. Very highly recommended. --Paul Cook

Tracks:

I. Adagio, ma non troppo e molto espressivo
II. Allegro molto vivace - attacca
III. Allegro moderato - attacca:
IV. Andante, ma non troppo e molto cantabile
V. Presto - Molto poco adagio - attacca:
VI. Adagio quasi un poco andante - attacca:
VII. Allegro
I. Allegro
II. Andantino
III. Prestissimo
IV. Scherzo. Fuga

Amazon.com

Over the years, various composers and conductors have taken selected chamber works of other composers and transcribed them for larger ensembles (string, chamber, even full-sized orchestra). The Barshai transcriptions of Shostakovich's 8th and 10th string quartets into two very famous chamber symphonies are perhaps the best (they also had the composer's blessing). Here, we have a Beethoven string quartet translated by Dimitri Mitropoulos and a Verdi string quartet translated by Arturo Toscanini into bright and energetic performances. Andre Previn's handling of the Beethoven is particularly illuminating. You can hear Wagner and Strauss to come, even though they are 75 years away. Toscanini's sculpting of the Verdi String Quartet in E minor reflects the great conductor's devotion to the full range of the strings. It hardly betrays its original, and much limited, framework. Very highly recommended. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews:

Pointless, really..........2000-10-08

Why Andre Previn recorded this, why DG, in a time of slicing back the classical catalogue because of an overabundance of the same old product, recorded it, and why anyone would bother to buy it, is a mystery to me. Op. 131 is possibly Beethoven's greatest string quartet, and maybe by extension the greatest string quartet of all time, and the arrangement for string orchestra (made many years ago by Dimitri Mitropoulos...how I would love to hear a recording from him of this work!) is very fine, but Leonard Bernstein already made a recording of this in 1979 for the same label... Previn's recording--and I listened to it very carefully--is almost note-for-note the same. The tempi, shadings, etc., are *for all practical purposes* the same, or so close as not to matter. And the few areas where they are not, the Bernstein has more nuance, a tighter response from the orchestra, and a better grasp of the architecture than Previn seems to have. But overall, the two interpretations are so close as to make this one superfluous. Of course, some people won't like turning Op. 131 into a full string ensemble piece period, and it's a legitimate complaint. But if you do, my advice is to get the Bernstein, for slightly cleaner playing, and also slightly better sound (the strings here are more shrill and glassy, and that famous light Viennese tone is missing...whether this is the fault of the recording or Previn I do not know). On Bernstein's recording you get Beethoven's Op. 135 as the filler piece, and here you get Verdi's E minor quartet. Neither work works well in the string orchestra form in my opinion, and neither is a reason to get one disc over the other. So to me it all boils down to Op. 131, and for me Bernstein is better. Again, what was Previn's point, especially when Bernstein's is readily available? A waste of time and talent...

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