Hard as it is to believe, Decca has never released a complete cycle of all Beethoven's string quartets. But then Decca has never been a chamber music label: it has had a history of spectacular opera and orchestral recordings, but most of its string quartet recordings were quietly released on its budget label. And even at a budget price, no Decca ...
The Essential Joshua Bell is really more a snapshot of Bell's 1990s recordings that attempts to capture the essence of his playing than a "must-have" album. These are all from his days at Decca, before he moved to Sony Classical and started doing more crossover recordings, so the selections are standard violin repertoire items, many familiar -- ...
While there is nothing to object to and much to appreciate in the Takács Quartet's recordings of Beethoven's late String Quartets, there is nothing to get particularly excited about, either. The Takács clearly has the aptitude to play Beethoven's technically most demanding quartets. The angularity of the Grosse Fuge and the hostility of the ...
In its first disc for Hyperion, the Takács Quartet takes on central repertoire works that it had strangely so far left unrecorded: Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" and "Rosamunde" quartets. The once all-Hungarian then half-English, half-Hungarian ensemble had already recorded quartets by Haydn, Dvorák, and, of course, Beethoven for Decca, but not ...
Vigorous and expressive but not especially sentimental and clearly in favor of direct rather than sober reflection, the Takács Quartet's 2003 recording of Beethoven's String Quartets, Op. 18, is a fine addition to the catalog. The Takács plays with accuracy, strength, and enthusiasm, if not much subtlety, nuance, or lyricism. Its tone is not so ...
Daring in virtuosity, vigorous in interpretation, and spellbinding in effect, the Takács Quartet has recorded one of the truly great sets of Bartók's monumental String Quartets (6), seldom matched and surely never surpassed. In hearing this stellar ensemble play, one is struck not so much by Bartók's unusual musical details or his myriad technical ...
This 2007 Hyperion disc coupling Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor and String Quartet in A minor is the Takács Quartet's second time around on both works. In 1991, the then all-Hungarian ensemble had recorded the pieces for Decca with Hungarian pianist András Schiff joining them in the quintet. The Takács Quartet of 1991, however, was not the Tak ...
In a recording career spread across three labels in 20 years, the Takács Quartet has heretofore not recorded the same works twice, until now. With this 2008 Hyperion recording of Brahms' B flat major and C minor string quartets, the group has gone head to head with the 1990 and 1991 Decca recording of the same works. One thing is immediately clear ...
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