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CD Description
This box set from the Artemis Quartet marks Virgin Classics’ first complete cycle of Beethoven String Quartets. Over the past two seasons, the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet has been performing Beethoven around the world, prompting reactions such as this one, from Die Zeit: “The members of the Artemis come as people who live life, and life is what they seek in Beethoven too.”
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an excellent addition to the now extensive range of complete recorded cycles of Beethoven's string quartets. There would seem to be little need for me to provide and opinion about these canons of Western music, but I will proffer one about this repackaging of the individual CDs issued by Virgin Classics (including a licensed early disc) over recent years by this young German quartet. In fact there have been a couple of personnel changes and the recordings were made between 1998-2010. Additional material has been recorded for this set in order to render it complete.
Throughout, the Artemis are intense and fresh; exciting and thoughtful at the same time. They are also beautifully recorded. Whilst there are many ways of playing this music, the Artemis Quartet have a very valid approach and remind me a little of what an European version of the Emerson Quartet Beethoven: The String Quartets might sound like. They are very different from the Endellion Quartet Beethoven Complete String Quartets,Quintets and fragments, another set that I like very much. I note that Gramophone was sniffy about the Artemis recordings, wheras MusicWeb International and International Record Review gave the definite "thumbs up". When that happens, I generally find the latter two critical sources so much more helpful; they were entirely right here.
So, if you want a brilliantly played, superbly recorded, and sophisticated modern set of the Beethoven Quartets, the Artemis Quartets would be an excellent choice.
Very highly recommended!
Throughout, the Artemis are intense and fresh; exciting and thoughtful at the same time. They are also beautifully recorded. Whilst there are many ways of playing this music, the Artemis Quartet have a very valid approach and remind me a little of what an European version of the Emerson Quartet Beethoven: The String Quartets might sound like. They are very different from the Endellion Quartet Beethoven Complete String Quartets,Quintets and fragments, another set that I like very much. I note that Gramophone was sniffy about the Artemis recordings, wheras MusicWeb International and International Record Review gave the definite "thumbs up". When that happens, I generally find the latter two critical sources so much more helpful; they were entirely right here.
So, if you want a brilliantly played, superbly recorded, and sophisticated modern set of the Beethoven Quartets, the Artemis Quartets would be an excellent choice.
Very highly recommended!
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Anyone wanting the complete Beethoven string quartets should look elsewhere as this is not complete. I am not talking about the lack of various snippets that the Endellion Quartet include; I am talking about the lack of Beethoven's replacement finale to the Op. 130 Quartet. The Artemis opt for the Op. 133 Grosse Fugue as the finale, a perfectly sensible course and one that has been followed by many other quartets, but not to include the replacement finale at all is hard to defend in a supposed complete set.
The recordings were made over the period 1998 to 2011 and two members of the quartet have changed in that time. I didn't notice any particular changes in style, indeed one of my favourite discs of the set (Opp. 132 and 135) includes both line-ups. However I expect that their view of some quartets will have matured in that time. Beethoven's greatest quartet, Op. 131, was recorded back in 2002 and I didn't find the reading particularly distinctive.
Clearly the quartet's technical abilities are first rate. They make a more mellow sound than many, with the leader less to the fore than is often the case. I thought that would be good, but I found in practice that they didn't really take me along as I listened. There were many places where the readings struck me as interestingly different, but I wasn't always convinced. I tried alternating my listening with the excellent set from the Tokyo quartet and I consistently found they did a much better job of engaging my attention than did the Artemis.
One remarkable feature is that they fit everything onto seven discs and this hasn't been done by cutting repeats. I think the only one missing is in the finale of Op. 135. The Endellion, the Lindsays (digital set) and the Borodins take the lot. Other top-rated sets, such as the Takacs, Emersons and Tokyo have a few repeats less.
Like the previous reviewer, I tend to prefer IRR to the Gramophone, but on this occasion I don't. This is a perfectly good set apart from the missing finale, but with so many superb sets around it doesn't really merit a place on my shelves.
The recordings were made over the period 1998 to 2011 and two members of the quartet have changed in that time. I didn't notice any particular changes in style, indeed one of my favourite discs of the set (Opp. 132 and 135) includes both line-ups. However I expect that their view of some quartets will have matured in that time. Beethoven's greatest quartet, Op. 131, was recorded back in 2002 and I didn't find the reading particularly distinctive.
Clearly the quartet's technical abilities are first rate. They make a more mellow sound than many, with the leader less to the fore than is often the case. I thought that would be good, but I found in practice that they didn't really take me along as I listened. There were many places where the readings struck me as interestingly different, but I wasn't always convinced. I tried alternating my listening with the excellent set from the Tokyo quartet and I consistently found they did a much better job of engaging my attention than did the Artemis.
One remarkable feature is that they fit everything onto seven discs and this hasn't been done by cutting repeats. I think the only one missing is in the finale of Op. 135. The Endellion, the Lindsays (digital set) and the Borodins take the lot. Other top-rated sets, such as the Takacs, Emersons and Tokyo have a few repeats less.
Like the previous reviewer, I tend to prefer IRR to the Gramophone, but on this occasion I don't. This is a perfectly good set apart from the missing finale, but with so many superb sets around it doesn't really merit a place on my shelves.
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