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Joseph
HAYDN (1732-1809)
Quartet Op.76 No.4 'Sunrise' (1796-97) [24:57]
Quartet Op. 3 No.5 “ Serenade” [16:37]
Quartet Op.76 No.2 (1796-97) [28:22] Luigi BOCCHERINI (1745-1805)
Quartet Op.39 No.3 [30:35] Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Quartet No. 10 in E flat Op.74 “The Harp” (1809) [35:29]
Quartetto
Italiano
rec. Basilica di S. Eufemia, Milan, March-April 1953, January
1955 and June 1956 TAHRA TAH647-8 [63:21
+ 58:42]
This is a canny selection of relatively early recordings
by the august Quartetto Italiano. They were made between
1953 and 1956 for Columbia. Collectors will know that the
current emphasis in reissue circles falls on the Decca Beethovens
(Early, Middle and Late), Mozart, Brahms, the famed Ravel-Debussy
coupling and Schubert on Philips and Testament’s reissues
of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, miscellaneous Italian repertoire
(Galuppi, Cambini and the like) and the Moderns – Malipiero,
Stravinsky, Prokofiev and others. The quartet began its discography
with Decca, switched to Columbia and then finally recorded
their long sequence for Philips.
Like the Smetana Quartet they played from memory until 1957
when the music stands returned. It’s something of a truism
to speak of their fluidity, their bel canto lyricism and
their avoidance of heavily weighted bowing. Nevertheless
it’s true. So when the notes talk of their combining Italian
lyricism with German depth I rather part company. The Quartetto
Italiano has always seemed to me something of an embodiment
of the fusing of the French and Italian schools. It’s a kind
of rigorously updated Pro Arte approach, one stripped of
the occasionally overdone portamenti of which that earlier
group was sometimes guilty, but which maintained a refined
and fluid warmth, especially in the classical repertoire.
Their Haydn is a delight. Op. 76 No.4 is refined, beautifully
blended and balanced. The adagio is delicately spun, the
trio is a real event in their hands, warmly coloured, slightly
mysterious too. The Serenade – Op.3 No.5 – is a rather more
veiled, less open recording. But the elegant sweetness is
still intact, the cantabile lines over pizzicati in the slow
movement expressive but never cloying. Op.76 No.2 is by contrast
vital; its Minuetto can be the excuse for some groups to
dig into the string but the Quartetto Italiano retain purity
and refinement – without perfume – and all the better for
it. Maybe overall some will find them a touch too smoothed
off, just a little too refined for Haydn in places, but the
corporate response is wonderfully realised.
Boccherini’s Op. 39 No.3 is played with accustomed elegance
but also with a sizeable sense of the work’s stature, especially
the long, strong opening movement. It gives Boccherini full
value – something the group was always to do. And finally
there is Beethoven’s Harp Quartet, Op.74. Their famed virtues
are here for those who wish to hear them. That light almost
wristy French-Belgian style is certainly there allied to
the warmest vocalised gifts, for voice leading, chordal weighting.
There is never a coagulated sound here; those wanting heft
and high-pressure Russian or American performances will doubtless
be disappointed by the relative sense of refinement brought
to bear. Others will welcome the performance with avidity.
Fine sounding transfers cap a singularly pleasurable disc.
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