Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets

Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets

Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets
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Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer: Alban Berg Quartett
Edition: Music CD
Format: Box set
CD Release Date: 1999-11-16
Music Label: EMI Classics
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Op. 18 No. 1 In F Major: I: Allegro Con Brio - Alban Berg Quartett
  2. Op. 18 No. 1 In F Major: II: Adagio Affettuoso Ed Appassionato - Alban Berg Quartett
  3. Op. 18 No. 1 In F Major: III: Scherzo (Allegro Molto) & Trio - Alban Berg Quartett
  4. Op. 18 No. 1 In F Major: IV: Allegro - Alban Berg Quartett
  5. Op. 59 No. 1 In F Major 'Rasumovsky': I: Allegro - Alban Berg Quartett
  6. Op. 59 No. 1 In F Major 'Rasumovsky': II: Allegretto Vivace E Sempre Scherzando - Alban Berg Quartett
  7. Op. 59 No. 1 In F Major 'Rasumovsky': III: Adagio molto e mesto : IV: Allegro (Thème russe) - Alban Berg Quartett
Music CD 2
  1. Op. 18 No.2 In G Major: I: Allegro - Alban Berg Quartett
  2. Op. 18 No.2 In G Major: II: Adagio cantabile - Alban Berg Quartett
  3. Op. 18 No.2 In G Major: III: Scherzo (Allegro) & Trio - Alban Berg Quartett
  4. Op. 18 No.2 In G Major: IV: Allegro molto, quasi presto - Alban Berg Quartett
  5. Op. 18 No. 6 In B Flat Major: I: Allegro con brio - Alban Berg Quartett
  6. Op. 18 No. 6 In B Flat Major: II: Adagio, ma non troppo - Alban Berg Quartett
  7. Op. 18 No. 6 In B Flat Major: III: Scherzo (Allegro) & Trio - Alban Berg Quartett
  8. Op. 18 No. 6 In B Flat Major: IV: Adagio (La Malinconia) - Allegretto quasi Allegro - Alban Berg Quartett
  9. Op. 135 In F Major: I: Allegretto - Alban Berg Quartett
  10. Op. 135 In F Major: II: Vivace - Alban Berg Quartett
  11. Op. 135 In F Major: III: Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo - Alban Berg Quartett
  12. Op. 135 In F Major: IV: Grave, ma non troppo tratto - Allegro - Alban Berg Quartett
Music CD 3
  1. Op. 18 No. 3 In D Major: I. Allegro
  2. Op. 18 No. 3 In D Major: II. Andante con moto
  3. III. Allegro
  4. Op. 18 No. 3 In D Major: IV. Presto
  5. Op. 18 No. 5 in A Major: I. Allegro
  6. Op. 18 No. 5 in A Major: II. Menuetto & Trio
  7. Op. 18 No. 5 in A Major: III. Andante cantabile
  8. Op. 18 No. 5 in A Major: IV. Allegro
  9. Op. 95 In F Minor: I. Allegro con brio
  10. Op. 95 In F Minor: II. Allegretto ma non troppo
  11. Op. 95 In F Minor: III: Allegro assai vivace, ma serioso
Music CD 4
  1. Op. 18 No. 4 In C Minor: I. Allegro ma non tanto
  2. Op. 18 No. 4 In C Minor: II. Scherzo (Andante scherzoso quasi Allegretto)
  3. Op. 18 No. 4 In C Minor: III. Menuetto (Allegretto) & Trio
  4. Op. 18 No. 4 In C Minor: IV. Allegro
  5. Op. 130 in B flat Major: I. Adagio ma non troppo - Allegro
  6. Op. 130 in B flat Major: II. Presto
  7. Op. 130 in B flat Major: III. Andante con moto, ma non troppo
  8. Op. 130 in B flat Major: IV. Alla danza tedesca (Allegro assai)
  9. Op. 130 in B flat Major: V Cavatina (Adagio molto espressivo)
  10. Grosse Fuge In B Flat Major, Op. 133
  11. Op. 130 in B flat Major: VI. Finale (Allegro)
Music CD 5
  1. Op. 59 No. 2 In E Minor 'Rasumovsky': I: Allegro
  2. Op. 59 No. 2 In E Minor 'Rasumovsky': II: Molto Allegro
  3. Op. 59 No. 2 In E Minor 'Rasumovsky': III: Allegretto
  4. Op. 59 No. 2 In E Minor 'Rasumovsky': IV: Finale (Presto)
  5. Op. 127 In E Flat Major: I: Maaestoso - Allegro
  6. Op. 127 In E Flat Major: II: Adagio ma non troppo, molto cantabile
  7. Op. 127 In E Flat Major: III: Scherzando vivace
  8. Op. 127 In E Flat Major: IV: Finale
Music CD 6
  1. Op. 59 No. 3 In C Major 'Rasumovsky': I: Introduzione (Andante con moto) - Allegro vivace
  2. Op. 59 No. 3 In C Major 'Rasumovsky': II: Andante con moto quasi allegretto
  3. Op. 59 No. 3 In C Major 'Rasumovsky': III: Menuetto (Grazioso) & Trio
  4. Op. 131 In C Sharp Minor: I: Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo
  5. Op. 131 In C Sharp Minor: II: Allegro molto vivace
  6. Op. 131 In C Sharp Minor: III: Allegro moderato
  7. Op. 131 In C Sharp Minor: IV: Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile
  8. Op. 131 In C Sharp Minor: V: Presto
  9. Op. 131 In C Sharp Minor: VI: Adagio quasi un poco andante
  10. Op. 131 In C Sharp Minor: VI: Adagio quasi un poco andante
Music CD 7
  1. Op. 74 In E Flat Major 'Harp': I Poco adagio - Allegro - Beethoven
  2. Op. 74 In E Flat Major 'Harp': II. Adagio ma non troppo - Beethoven
  3. Op. 74 In E Flat Major 'Harp': III. Presto - Beethoven
  4. Op. 74 In E Flat Major 'Harp': IV: Allegretto con Variazioni - Beethoven
  5. Op.132 In A Minor: I: Allegro sostenuto - Allegro - Beethoven
  6. Op.132 In A Minor: II: Allegro ma non tanto - Beethoven
  7. Op.132 In A Minor: III: Molto adagio - Beethoven
  8. Op.132 In A Minor: IV: Alla marcia, assai vivace - Beethoven

Free Music Notes for Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets

Free Music Review: Budget priced, in a strange order, but excellent
Hit: 5 Stars

A great job by the Berg quartet.

I started with the old Columbia LP of the Budapest's version of the final quartets, but it would be a false note for the Berg quartet to try to recapture the feeling of disaster that pervades the Budapest versions, made as these were during the world war period; no "l'art pour l'art" hot air could convince me that music (a most social art, indeed sociological in Adorno) can be independent in its making from horror.

Instead the Berg quartet seems to me to be more technically proficient, not that I give too much of a damn about this; I have never understood why we think we deserve the first rate reproduction at all times, and the second or third rate reproduction can reveal much more (I'm thinking in this connection of the version of *Kunst der Fuge* made for Naxos by a guy who used to play in my church, Wolfgang Rubsam: there seems to this layman to be a lot of Rubsambato in it but it reproduces for the modern listener the risk of dissonance implicit in fugueing tunes).

To meet the price point, EMI has the quartets in a completely screwed up, if not kittywumpus, order, probably to reduce the disk count. But when you buy the CDs for immediate copying to iPod, you can then put them in the "right" order, by quartet number within opus number.

Be advised, though, that the superb liner notes mention that the opus and number order doesn't reflect Beethoven's order of composing the quartets, but give the correct order.

Listening in either order is a long, spiritual journey, because LVB used the quartet as a laboratory for risky experiments that an orchestra wouldn't be able to play. You discover the origin of the slow movements, the visions of eternity, in the late quartets in the Rasumovsky quartets and in general how Beethoven, like Shakespeare as seen by Gary Wells, didn't finish "finished" works once and for all, but was troubled by aporias and untried alternatives and would screw around with them until the late quartets, when it appeared that Beethoven decided to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and used the quartet for distinctly Modernist experiments.

Modernist, in the sense of clearing out the concert hall as the more typical music "lovers" fled in horror in the middle of the Grosse Fuge, in which he gave himself license to cock a snook at a society of pompous fools that had taken his best and given him jack s*t.

Adorno (yeah, Adorno) felt that you can't understand music except as a dialectical logic. This is the opposition of thesis and antithesis and the production of a synthesis containing both, in a nondialectical formulation which drops most of the dialectic on the floor: the dialectic has to be lived and may be sheer Blarney: but it pervades our reception of all music worth more than one listening.

The fact is that I stopped being able to listen to David Bowie's Helden (Heroes) despite this being my favorite rock and roll anthem, but never fast forward past the Grosse Fuge.

In the late quartets, the magnificence (sublimity) of utter loss of control somehow contained is followed by slow movements which constitute sincere and loving apologies for smashing the crockery. Beethoven's irreconcilability to himself and the unacceptability of being raised by an alcoholic (which is what his Dad was) was also his relation to his family and society as a whole. It makes great cinema as two recent movies (Immortal Beloved and Copying Beethoven) have shown.

My fat pal Adorno was puzzled by the theological implications of the late Beethoven and never managed to stop writing about it, his writings being themselves a search for the solution to this mystery: Bach is only with difficulty shoehorned into an ad maiorem dei gloriam Procrustean framework, and the theology of the Dangkegesang is something pre-Christian, a sacrifice for a fleeting sense of material well-being. Pain isn't celebrated in the late quartets.

Beethoven didn't go back to Bach, but like most advanced musicians of his day, including Mendelssohn, he was fascinated by "learned" music, music that almost (but not quite) is meant to be read in a score, and not played at all by a cafe orchestra...or if played by a Wolfgang Rubsam, to be played, as he plays, without excessive respect for the text, and some abandon.

Frank Zappa said that most rock and roll writing is written by those who cannot write for those who cannot read. Most classical music reviews on Amazon seem to affirm this also for classical music and its dialectical potential: on the one hand, one wants to shake the theological respect people have for classical concerts out of them by farting loudly, on the other hand, one is enraged by the lack of respect underlying the excessive respect (a lack of respect shown by the actual material treatment of the members of actual symphony orchestras, neatly and dialectically answered by their alienation, which was noted early on by Aaron Copland).

Oh Freunde, nicht dieses Tonen. Enough! Ess muss sein.

Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets Poster

String Quartets by Beethoven Quartet

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