Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartets

With Op. 18, Beethoven really started to mark his departure from the Classical Style epitomized by Haydn and Mozart. The style of the Op. 18 quartets, though, is still indebted to the previous two trailblazers, and is distinctly different from the late quartets. To these ears, at least, it really benefits from a light touch and not too much dwelling on the profundities of things.

The finest set of the Op. 18 quartets that I've ever laid ears on is the Budapest Quartet's performances from a Library of Congress concert series, issued on CBS Masterworks Portrait as a 2-CD set. This quartet's strongest points are a strong sense of ensemble and luscious, tasteful old-fashioned sound, and this series captured the quartet at one of its artistic highpoints. None makes any more sense of Op. 18/2 than they.

Among modern recordings, one set that impressed me greatly was the RCA 3-CD issue featuring the Cleveland Quartet (prior to their new Teldec series; I don't know this cycle). Stunning ensemble, lovingly phrased, but sadly spreadeagled over three CDs. Another fine set is the Alban Berg Quartet on 3 EMI CDs (and frankly, the Alban Berg's smooth homogeneity makes this the only set of Beethoven recordings recommendable from this group).

These quartets hail from Beethoven's astounding "middle period" in his output, when he semed to dash off one masterpiece after another. These are almost certainly the best introduction to his quartet output, and are among the first to require a greater measure of interpretive depth.

Here, unfortunately, many groups fall short; I'd avoid the Budapests or the Alban Bergs in these or the late quartets, for instance. The most successful recordings that I know of hail from complete sets; the Quartetto Italiano, the Amadeus, the Lindsays, and the Vegh have done fine efforts here, for starters. More later.

These works comprise Beethoven's final thoughts in large forms, and are intensely private music, intended for the appreciation of a select few friends, rather than a large public audience. It is said that with these works, Beethoven invented the avant-garde. Schubert was among the first rabid aficionados of these works, and Stravinsky hailed the Grosse Fuge (Op. 133, original finale to Op. 130) as that absolutely modern piece of music, now and forever. If you listen to these works in the aforementioned order (i.e., the original order of composition), you can experience Beethoven's remarkable growth as a composer even in this final period. His structures grow steadily more and more complex with each essay (at the simplest level, there is one additional movement with each quartet), culminating with his masterwork, Op. 131. He then takes one fond look back at the Classical era, whose foundations he shook irretrievably, with Op. 135. (In his own distinct way, of course; the slow movement of Op. 135 can easily be mistaken for Mahler if taken at the right tempo.)

These are the quartets that test an ensemble's mettle, and my favorites again hail from complete sets, detailed a bit below.

Be forewarned, by the way, that while I've heard a lot of recordings of these pieces, and compared them back to back in most cases, my memories of some are very few, and I've never laid ears on others. So there are some sets that others speak lovingly of (first Juilliard cycle on CBS, Kodaly on Naxos, Fitzwilliams on London) that I can't corroborate or dispute. But I can certainly believe a few claims. Here goes.