Leos Janacek: Quatuors à cordes

EAC | APE, CUE, LOG | Booklet | 352 Mb

septembre/25/2008 | 68:11 | Alpha

Turbobit - - Uploaded

The Diotima Quartet turns in passionate, spontaneous, and highly idiomatic performances of both works irrespective of the editions being used. Misjudgments are few and far between: the opening of the Second quartet's finale, with its accompaniment now played pizzicato, would have benefited from a slightly livelier basic tempo. Similarly, the finale of the First quartet surges to a climax just a bit too early, the accompaniment overpowering the principal voices, making the return of the work's opening idea less powerful than it should be. In the very soft playing at the opening of the same work's third and fourth movements, the group sometimes tries too hard to produce a ghostly sonority, with some cost in steadiness of tone.

Where the group excels, as in the café music with sinister ponticello interruptions in the First quartet's second movement, or in the explosive eruption in the third movement of "Intimate Letters", it's simply because they are playing their collective hearts out and reacting spontaneously to the music's superheated emotionalism, edition be damned. As I said previously, the general impression these performances make is extremely positive: my reservations really only come into play if you have the reference versions listed above or a few others (one of the Talich Quartet recordings, for instance, or the recent Skampa Quartet also on Supraphon). These have just that much more spontaneity and technical finish.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

tracklist:

String Quartet No. 2 "Intimate Letters"

(with viola)

String Quartet No. 1 "Kreutzer Sonata"

String Quartet No. 2 "Intimate Letters"

(with viola d'amore)

Quatuor Diotima

I'm beginning here to resurrect some of the works that "disappeared" from Avax or were "abandoned" from the original uploaders. There's not a real thought behind it, I'm just cleaning up my HDs and following the wind. What I downloaded long ago is flowing back. All credits go to the first uploader. Enjoy...