Special offer. Beethoven: String Quartets Nos. 3, 5 and 16
Artemis Quartet
Awards:
-
BBC Music Magazine, September 2011, Chamber Choice
The Artemis Quartet plays the opening of Op. 135 with rich warmth, classical poise, and just the right kind of reverence...They don’t hurl themselves at the second movement, instead allowing...
Special offer. Beethoven: String Quartets Nos. 3, 5 and 16
Artemis Quartet
Purchase product
Awards:
-
BBC Music Magazine, September 2011, Chamber Choice
The Artemis Quartet plays the opening of Op. 135 with rich warmth, classical poise, and just the right kind of reverence...They don’t hurl themselves at the second movement, instead allowing...
About
With this release of two early quartets and his last completed quartet, the Artemis Quartet rounds off its Beethoven cycle for Virgin Classics. “His music speaks to every era,” they say, “It is a perfect dialogue between tradition and modernity, and between intellectual refinement and raw emotion,”
Beethoven’s extraordinary musical evolution is traced in the cycle, which remains the touchstone of the quartet repertoire. The Artemis’ passionate engagement with the composer’s music was summarised by Die Zeit: “An ensemble that, when compared to groups on a similar level of perfection, seems to approach the repertoire from another horizon. Many quartets convey an air in their playing of rarefied workmanship and detached refinement from the world. They explore the music within the notes. The members of the Artemis come as people who live life, and life is what they seek in Beethoven too.”
Contents and tracklist
- Artemis Quartet
- Recorded: 2011-02-11
- Recording Venue: 21, 22 December 2010, 27, 28 January & 9, 10, 11 February 2011. Teldex Studio, Berlin.
- Artemis Quartet
- Recorded: 2011-02-11
- Recording Venue: 21, 22 December 2010, 27, 28 January & 9, 10, 11 February 2011. Teldex Studio, Berlin.
- Artemis Quartet
- Recorded: 2011-02-11
- Recording Venue: 21, 22 December 2010, 27, 28 January & 9, 10, 11 February 2011. Teldex Studio, Berlin.
Spotlight on this release
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Awards and reviews
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BBC Music MagazineSeptember 2011Chamber Choice
13th June 2011
The Artemis Quartet plays the opening of Op. 135 with rich warmth, classical poise, and just the right kind of reverence...They don’t hurl themselves at the second movement, instead allowing Beethoven’s ingeniously worked rhythms to propel the piece from the inside...The two Op. 18 Quartets here, numbers 3 and 5, are delivered with apparently effortless grace and effervescent athleticism, and the recording frames everything to perfection.
4th June 2011
these well-considered readings of two early Opus 18 works respect the composer’s debt to Mozart and Haydn without ironing out Beethovenian temperament. It’s in the Opus 135 quartet, his last, that the Artemis are most in tune with the composer’s questing, undying spirit, in a performance free of mawkish reverence
August 2011
Their combination of rhythmic control and dynamic accent shapes a line where tensions, relaxations, changes of pace and mood produce a dramatic force that is far from amiable or cheerful...consistently superb ensemble, grounded by a strong cello line and refined by an internal balance where every voice tells...You are always made aware of greatness.
July/August 2011
the accounts are eminently musical and stylish...Although these are modern instruments, the Artemis favours an astringent, sometimes vibrato-free tone that seems absolutely right for Beethoven...It certainly makes one want to hear more Beethoven from these players.
