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Saturday, January 20, 2018

Max Bruch - String Quartets (Diogenes Quartett)


Information

Composer: Max Bruch
  • (01-04) String Quartet C minor, Op. posth.
  • (05-08) String Quartet C minor, Op. 9
  • (09-12) String Quartet E major, Op. 10:

Diogenes Quartett
Stefan Kirpal, violin
Gundula Kirpal, violin
Alba González i Becerra, viola
Stephen Ristau, cello

Date: 2016
Label: Brilliant Classics
http://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/b/bruch-complete-string-quartets/


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Review

"When Max Bruch’s music was compared unfavourably to Brahms’s, he had his excuse ready: the pram in the hall. ‘I had a wife and children to support,’ he said, according to Christopher Fifield’s biography. ‘I had to write works that were pleasing and easily understood.’ That’s certainly the case with his chamber music. Written for the most part at the beginning and end of his career, there’s less of it than you might expect. These two new recordings, between them, cover nearly half of his chamber output.

The Diogenes Quartet’s disc, in fact, has a claim to be the first complete cycle of his string quartets, including the premiere recording of his unpublished Quartet in C minor – written in 1852 when the composer was 14, praised by Spohr, but published only in 2013. In fact, it shares its two inner movements almost note-for-note with Bruch’s ‘official’ First Quartet, Op 9. And like that work and the lush E major Quartet, Op 10, of 1858, it’s very audibly written under the spell not of Brahms (how could it be, in the 1850s?) or even Schumann, but Mendelssohn.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, especially when it’s done with as much freshness and warmth as the teenage Bruch brings to all three of these works. The Diogenes Quartet play with ardour and a symphonic sweep, with first violinist Stefan Kirpal’s brilliant tone giving a high polish to Bruch’s swirling passagework. Brilliant Classics’ expansive, resonant recording helps with that too."

"... serve the composer splendidly, with a musicianship and a devotion that might have had even this famously grumpy composer cracking a reluctant smile."

-- Richard Bratby, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Mar/Bruch_quartets_95051.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Jun/Bruch_quartets_95051.htm
https://www.thestrad.com/bruch-string-quartets-no1-in-c-minor-op9-no2-in-e-major-op10-in-c-minor-op-posth/1236.article

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Max Bruch (6 January 1838 in Cologne – 2 October 1920 in Berlin) was a German Romantic composer and conductor. He wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, and was best known for his first violin concerto, which is a staple of the violin repertory and one of the most popular Romantic violin concertos. His complex and unfailingly well-structured works, in the German Romantic musical tradition, placed him in the camp of Romantic classicism exemplified by Johannes Brahms, rather than the opposing "New Music" of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his time he was known primarily as a choral composer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Bruch

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Diogenes Quartett, founded in 1998, is a internationally renowned string quartet based in Munich. Its style shows the influence of the collaboration with pedagogues and other ensembles, such as the Amadeus Quartet and the La Salle Quartet. Since its establishment, the Diogenes Quartet has acquired a large share of the string quartet repertoire, including unknown and contemporary compositions. In recent years, the quartet has recorded all string quartets by Franz Schubert and Max Bruch. Its current members included: Stefan Kirpal & Gundula Kirpal, violin; Alba González i Becerra, viola; Stephen Ristau, cello.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_Quartett
http://diogenes-quartett.de/?lang=en

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8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Hi Ronald! Can you please re-up this recording when you have a moment? Many thanks, Thorlief

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Can you please reload this file for Bruch String Quartets (Diogenes String Quartet) in to mega.nz?

    All three links show no file.

    Thank you.

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  6. Puede reponer este álbum? Muchas gracias

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  7. Choose one link, copy and paste it to your browser's address bar, wait a few seconds (you may need to click 'Continue' first), then click 'Free Access with Ads' / 'Get link'. Complete the steps / captchas if require.
    Guide for Linkvertise: 'Free Access with Ads' --> 'Get [Album name]' --> 'I'm interested' --> 'Explore Website / Learn more' --> close the newly open tab/window, then wait for a few seconds --> 'Get [Album name]'

    https://direct-link.net/610926/bruch-quartets
    or
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    or
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    ReplyDelete