Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Juilliard String Quartet :: Beethoven: The Late String Quartets

Solid, Enjoyable Beethoven Quartet Rendition

03/17/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I rate this CD set not as a professional music critic, but as a former violin/viola player who loves chamber music. I find this CD set and the others in the series (Early and Middle Quartets) to be quite satsfying for listening. The Julliard Quartet performs with a full, rich tone and the recording quality is excellent. The CD's were given to me as a gift, but I would not hesitate to purchase the Julliard rendition of the Beethoven Quartet's for myself. Two criticisms: the quality of presentation does vary. The recording of the middle quartets is not as good as the early and late quartets, in my opinion. Also, I find portions of the Grosse Fugue to be too choppy and technical. I rate this with four stars because I feel it is an excellent recording, but not perfect."

The Juilliard String Quartet 's Beethoven

Stephen E. Assey | Saratoga Springs, New York USA | 03/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have lived with the Juilliard's Beethoven String Quartets for over 30 years. I had the LP version of the complete Quartets from the 70's. I updated to all 3 CD sets (Early, Middle, & Late) from the 80's. With the Juilliard, you do not get surface polish or detached athleticism. What you do get is real flesh & blood musicians mining deep into Beethoven's soul. No wonder Grammaphone rarely acknowledges the Juilliards. They may be less "civilized" than the string quartets of Europe, however, the Juilliards find the very essence of Beethoven."

Mature players taking it fairly easy in late Beethoven

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 07/21/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"When the Juilliard was a couple of decades younger, they produced a vigorous set of Beethoven Qts. for CBS that Sony now sells only as a complete box set. It's not terribly expensive on the used market and is preferable to these remakes from the 80s. American quartets have not been notably successful at finding the depth of expression that the finest European ensembles (e.g., Quartetto Italiano, Alban Berg, Amadeus, Borodin, and the legendary Beethoven Quartet from the Soviet Union) specialize in. That European tradition extends today to the Takacs Qt., but direct comparison with any of the above makes these Late Quartets from the aging Juilliard sound tame and inexpressive.



Not that the Juilliard at any stage of its half-century-plus career is anything less than fine. Here, however, every quartet sounds about the same: the score is played with lovely balance and tone, there are no eccentricities, and tempos remain moderate. Where is the spark of genius, however? Where, for that matter, is the imagination to give each work its own personality? Whether we are in Op. 127 or Op. 135, two works that are the alpha and omega of Beethoven's late style, the Juilliard's proficient, impersonal methods are applied. If you know this in advance and don't require passion, romance, mystery, and fantasy, these well-recorded performances fit the bill."