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Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Luigi Cherubini - String Quartets (Melos Quartet)


Information

Composer: Luigi Cherubini

CD1:
  • (01) String Quartet No. 1 in E flat major
  • (05) String Quartet No. 2 in C major
CD2:
  • (01) String Quartet No. 3 in D minor
  • (05) String Quartet No. 4 in E major
CD3:
  • (01) String Quartet No. 5 in F major
  • (05) String Quartet No. 6 in A minor

Melos Quartet
Wilhelm Melcher, violin
Gerhard Voss, violin
Hermann Voss, viola
Peter Buck, cello

Date: 1976/2009
Label: Brilliant Classics (originally published by Deutsche Grammophon)


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Review

Cherubini may be known more as a reputation than a listening reality. However didn’t Callas record his Medée? But there are other operas: Lodoïska, Les Deux Journées and Eliza. His symphony made it onto vinyl in the 1970s. Riccardo Muti recorded Cherubini’s two Requiems for EMI Classics. The String Quartets date from after Cherubini’s long engagement with opera had ended.
 
This sequence of six strongly imaginative string quartets appeared out of the blue on LP from the world’s most exclusive record label in the mid-1970s. It was then very much a connoisseur’s choice and all the more impressive at full price in a 3LP box. Its attractions have faded hardly at all.
 
The First Quartet is fluent, Mozartean and replete with lyrically inventive drama. The chuckling Schubertian Scherzo is a delight. That same lightness of spirit is also to be found in the Scherzo of the otherwise more philosophical Second Quartet. These two works reminded me of Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings. The Third Quartet streams and runs with bustling life and if its fugal Scherzo at first tends towards the mechanically stilted the finale has muscular dramatic power. Its successor feels more dense and introspective – indeed almost melancholy. The Fifth Quartet has a splendidly motile slender charm in the mix alongside the pensive and the dramatic. Again, in the Finale, Mendelssohnian echoes abound. The final quartet was written within five years of his death. It has Mozartean cheeriness and an exciting dynamic demeanour. These qualities are put across by the Melos with bright-eyed concentration and considerable poetic spirit. The sound is analogue and is mildly undermined by a slightly angry high treble – heard in the high violin passages in the first quartet - and by a benevolent discreet hiss. Nothing to worry about.
 
The booklet essay by Cherubini scholar Michael Fend is full of interest – on the subject works and on their context.
 
The competition for the Cherubini quartets is all at higher prices from CPO (Hausmusik) and Bis (Quartetto David). I have not heard those versions but given the evident excellence of these interpretations, the convenient format and fine recording technology of the Brilliant set they would have to be exceptional indeed for most enthusiasts to look further afield. This set from the high summer of the LP still sounds handsome (try the softest of soft pizzicato at 2.47 in the final quartet’s finale) and it can be had for as little as £8.99.
 
-- Rob BarnettMusicWeb International

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Luigi Cherubini (8 or 14 September 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. Although born and educated in Florence, Cherubini felt constrained by Italian traditions and always eager to experiment. He then traveled to London in 1785, and later settled in Paris, France, where he spent the rest of his life. During his lifetime, Cherubini received France's highest and most prestigious honors. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries, while his operas were heavily praised and interpreted by Rossini.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Cherubini

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Melos Quartet, is a German string quartet musical ensemble based in Stuttgart, that was founded in October 1965 by four young musicians who were members of well-known German chamber orchestras: Wilhelm Melcher (violin 1), Gerhard Voss (violin 2), Hermann Voss (viola) & Peter Buck (cello). In 1993, Ida Bieler replaced Gerhard Voss as the quartet's second violinist. The group gave its first recital in 1966 and by 1975 had built up a repertoire of 120 works. They were planning a farewell tour in 2005, when Wilhelm Melcher, the first violinist died unexpectedly just before his 65th birthday.

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3 comments:

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  2. Would it be too much to request a re upload? I listened to his Requiem in C minor and enjoyed it immensely, and would also be interested to hear his string quartet.

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  3. 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.
    If you are asked to download or install anything, IGNORE, only download from file hosting site (mega.nz).
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    https://link-center.net/610926/cherubini-string-quartets
    or
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