Tuesday 12 June 2007

End of a Cycle

I've already dealt with the Triple cd of late Beethoven string quartets by the Takacs Quartet and also the double cd of the early ones. Completing the cycle here with the double cd of what I guess are the "middle" quartets, the three Razumovsky quartets and the Harp quartet. Not much more to be said about the performances, I think it is generally accepted that the Takacs cycle is one of, if not the best currently available. As to the progression of Beethoven's music, the Razumovsky quartets mark the first radical shift from the string quartet tradition that had gone before, contemporaneous really with the Eroica in the field of the symphony.

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