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Brodsky Quartet - New World Quartets: Dvořák, Barber, Gershwin, Copland, Brubeck (2014)

Posted By: tirexiss
Brodsky Quartet - New World Quartets: Dvořák, Barber, Gershwin, Copland, Brubeck (2014)

Brodsky Quartet - New World Quartets: Dvořák, Barber, Gershwin, Copland, Brubeck (2014)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:17:08 | 350 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Chandos | Catalog: CHAN 10801

There are enough new performances of American music by British and continental European groups to constitute a vogue, and this superb release by Britain's Brodsky Quartet makes a fine place to start with the trend in several respects. First there's a reading of the Dvorák String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96 ("American"), that could stand on its own as a reason for purchase. The Brodsky runs counter to type with this performance, which offers a relaxed, singing version of the music that accords well with the great performances of the Cello Concerto in B minor. Many quartets push the music and thus bring out its rhythmic structure, but that doesn't suffer in this version emphasizing the African-American-influenced melodic content that the composer himself pointed to in the work.

Quasar - Quatuor de Saxophones (2000)

Posted By: tirexiss
Quasar - Quatuor de Saxophones (2000)

Quasar - Quatuor de Saxophones (2000)
WEB | FLAC (tracks) - 362 MB | 01:07:06
Genre: Classical | Label: ATMA Classique

Founded in Montreal in 1993, Quasar is a saxophone quartet devoted mainly to new music, and particularly to the creation and promotion of Canadian works. This disc presents an exciting selection of works, most of which were commissioned and premiered by Quasar.

Schubert Ensemble - Antonín Dvořák: Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet (2012)

Posted By: tirexiss
Schubert Ensemble - Antonín Dvořák: Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet (2012)

Schubert Ensemble - Antonín Dvořák: Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet (2012)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Cover + Digital Booklet | 01:16:55 | 346 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Chandos | Catalog: CHAN 10719

Dvorák's popular Piano Quartet No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 87, and Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, have received numerous performances by Czech ensembles, as well as plenty of foreigners who have attained fluency in the received Czech style (or not). This fine release by Britain's Schubert Ensemble takes the step of defining a non-Czech way of playing Dvorák, with fresh and persuasive results.

Juilliard String Quartet - Smetana, Franck: String Quartets (1997)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Juilliard String Quartet - Smetana, Franck: String Quartets (1997)

Juilliard String Quartet - Smetana, Franck: String Quartets (1997)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 318 Mb | Total time: 73:57 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Sony Classical | # SK 63302 | Recorded: 1988, 1989

In the last years of his life, Franck created three chamber music masterpieces: the Violin Sonata, the Piano Quintet, and this String Quartet. Only the Violin Sonata has achieved a full measure of popularity, and this string quartet is virtually unknown, largely because of its ambitious length and difficulty in performance. It's a terrific piece of music employing the composer's trademark cyclical form: the movements share tunes, and the finale acts as a sort of summing up of the entire work. While challenging to the performers, there's nothing difficult about it for the listener, and this performance is just about the only show in town. Fortunately, it's a very good one. –David Hurwitz

Borodin Quartet, Yuri Bashmet, Natalia Gutman - Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1-3, Sextet "Souvenir de Florence" (1988)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Borodin Quartet, Yuri Bashmet, Natalia Gutman - Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1-3, Sextet "Souvenir de Florence" (1988)

Borodin Quartet, Yuri Bashmet, Natalia Gutman - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1-3, Sextet "Souvenir de Florence" (1988)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 664 Mb | Total time: 67:48+72:18 | Scans included
Classical | Label: EMI Classics | # CDS 7 49775 2 | Recorded: 1978-1980

In all three quartets the Borodin play with an easy authority and what seems to be perfect style. There are no obvious interpretative quirks, there's nothing showy to get between the music and the listener, and it is evident that these musicians are thoroughly immersed in the authentic Russian tradition of playing Tchaikovsky's music. Technically and tonally they are first rate, and they combine well with the two excellent extra players in Souvenir de Florence.

Vermeer Quartet - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Quartet Op. 22; Sextet ‘Souvenir de Florence’ (1994)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Vermeer Quartet - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Quartet Op. 22; Sextet ‘Souvenir de Florence’ (1994)

Vermeer Quartet - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Quartet Op. 22; Sextet ‘Souvenir de Florence’ (1994)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 334 Mb | Total time: 73:44 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Cedille Records | # CDR 90000 017 | Recorded: 1993

The internationally celebrated Vermeer Quartet, known for its extensive, major-label recordings of standard repertoire, has turned to its hometown record label, Chicago’s Cedille Records, for a program of important yet surprisingly neglected Tchaikovsky works.

Maggini Quartet – Berkeley: String Quartets Nos. 1-3 (2007)

Posted By: tirexiss
Maggini Quartet – Berkeley: String Quartets Nos. 1-3 (2007)

Maggini Quartet – Berkeley: String Quartets Nos. 1-3 (2007)
EAC | APE (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:02:58 | 306 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Naxos | Catalog: 8.570415

This disc, another in the Maggini Quartet's series of recordings of string quartets by twentieth century English composers for Naxos, brings together the three quartets of Lennox Berkeley. And as in the group's previous recordings of quartets by Bridge, Arnold, and Rawsthorne, the music proves as excellent as it is unexpected. Berkeley's quartets date from 1935, 1941, and 1970, and each sounds like a work of its time yet still characteristic of the composer.

Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Spohr: Double Quartets (1998)

Posted By: tirexiss
Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Spohr: Double Quartets (1998)

Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Spohr: Double Quartets (1998)
EAC | APE (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:50:24 | 595 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Hyperion | Catalog: CDD22014

Louis Spohr's inventive streak is evident in his creation of the double quartet, a novel form that opened the string octet to new textural, antiphonal, and contrapuntal possibilities. However, like many of Spohr's other chamber experiments, his strategies occasionally led him into unintended compositional difficulties, and his results were most successful when he put aesthetic considerations over cleverness. Spohr's showy writing for the first violin, flamboyant and widespread in the Double Quartet No. 1, caused unevenness in the ensemble's balance and exposed the bareness of the other parts.

Hungarian Quartet, Laszlo Varga - Schubert: String Quartets 13-15, String Quintet (2003)

Posted By: tirexiss
Hungarian Quartet, Laszlo Varga - Schubert: String Quartets 13-15, String Quintet (2003)

Hungarian Quartet, Laszlo Varga - Schubert: String Quartets 13-15, String Quintet (2003)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 02:36:39 | 840 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: EMI Classics | Catalog: 7243 5 85526 2 1

While these recordings by the Hungarian Quartet contain perfectly acceptable performances and adequately idiomatic interpretations of Schubert's later chamber music for string quartet and quintet, they contain nothing more than that. In the late '50s and early '60s, the Hungarian Quartet was a widely respected group playing in the central European tradition of plumy intonation, sugary sonorities, sometimes scrappy ensemble, and often sentimental interpretations.

Claire Guimond, Trio Sonnerie - Mozart: Flute Quartets Nos. 1-4 (2001)

Posted By: tirexiss
Claire Guimond, Trio Sonnerie - Mozart: Flute Quartets Nos. 1-4 (2001)

Claire Guimond, Trio Sonnerie - Mozart: Flute Quartets Nos. 1-4 (2001)
WEB | FLAC (tracks) - 278 MB | 55:37
Genre: Classical | Label: early-music

One of Canada’s most sought-after flautists, Claire Guimond proudly introduces her version of Mozart’s four flute quartets. A most interesting mixture of dreamyness and humour is presented, on what is destined to become a truly important recording. An impeccably engineered product and extremely well performed – totally imbued by the warmth and softeness of Claire Guimond’s baroque flute which has become a real trademark for this outstanding performer.

Kuss Quartet - Schubert, Berg: String Quartets (2011)

Posted By: tirexiss
Kuss Quartet - Schubert, Berg: String Quartets (2011)

Kuss Quartet - Schubert, Berg: String Quartets (2011)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 73:55 | 351 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Onyx Classics | Catalog: ONYX 4066

Dwarfing even the late Beethoven quartets in sheer length, Schubert's final String Quartet in G major, D. 887, clocks in at nearly an hour of performance time. This ambitious length made it difficult to appreciate in Schubert's Vienna and can even be a test of focus for modern audiences if anything but a superb performance is put forward. Fortunately for listeners of this Onyx album, the Kuss Quartet produces just such a performance. The approach to Schubert offers far more drive, intensity, and grit than the vast majority of recordings available.

Ensemble Meridiana - Tastes of Europe: Telemann Trios & Quartets (2011)

Posted By: tirexiss
Ensemble Meridiana - Tastes of Europe: Telemann Trios & Quartets (2011)

Ensemble Meridiana - Tastes of Europe: Telemann Trios & Quartets (2011)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 61:04 | 393 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Linn Records | Catalog: CKD 368

The debut recording by the award-winning Ensemble Meridiana. A scintillating programme of Telemann leading the listener on a musical jouney through Europe in the Baroque period. On this beautiful recording, Ensemble Meridiana explores a variety of Georg Philipp Telemann's chamber music. The pieces chosen highlight the mastery of Telemann's 'mixed taste' writing style and are a perfect display of Baroque influences from France, Germany, Italy and Poland.

Bartholdy Piano Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Quartets Nos. 2 & 3 (1994)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Bartholdy Piano Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Quartets Nos. 2 & 3 (1994)

Bartholdy Piano Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Quartets Nos. 2 & 3 (1994)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 240 Mb | Total time: 60:54 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.550967 | Recorded: 1991, 1992

Mendelssohn's three piano quartets were written in childhood. The second, the Piano Quartet in F minor, Opus 2, was written in 1823, a year after the first, and dedicated to his teacher Zelter. The strings start the first movement, before the piano adds its own more extended comment. It is the piano that introduces the A flat major second subject, based on the descending scale. The piano part gives an appearance of virtuosity, with complications of hand-crossing to impress an audience. The strings, violin, viola and then cello, lead back, as the central development comes to an end, to the recapitulation and final more rapid coda.

Arthur Campbell, Gregory Maytan, Paul Swantek, Pablo Mahave-Veglia - Stamitz: Quartets for Clarinet (2013)

Posted By: tirexiss
Arthur Campbell, Gregory Maytan, Paul Swantek, Pablo Mahave-Veglia - Stamitz: Quartets for Clarinet (2013)

Arthur Campbell, Gregory Maytan, Paul Swantek, Pablo Mahave-Veglia - Stamitz: Quartets for Clarinet (2013)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 65:56 | 358 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Audite | Catalog: AUDITE92661

Carl Stamitz’s Clarinet Quartets Op. 8 and Op. 19 are amongst the earliest compositions for clarinet and string trio and document the increasing significance of the clarinet in the second half of the 18th century. These quartets demonstrate Stamitz’s profound understanding of the instrument and also allow an illuminating insight into his idiom. With his sensitive interpretations, Arthur Campbell emphasises the cantabile quality of the clarinet, which dominates all the quartets recorded on this SACD.

Sviatoslav Richter, Borodin Quartet Members - Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 2 in A (1987)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Sviatoslav Richter, Borodin Quartet Members - Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 2 in A (1987)

Sviatoslav Richter, Borodin Quartet Members - Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 2 in A (1987)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 206 Mb | Total time: 47:26 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Philips | # 420 158-2 | Recorded: 1983

Richter on the road in Tours France, with no studio in sight, and with a great Russian string quartet in a live performance. This enterprise in thoroughly inspired. Good tempi throughout and nothing drags. There is great interplay between Richter and the Borodins. They milk the lyrical content of the first movement and build the finale to its electrifying finale.