Unsurpassed Debussy & Ravel String Quartets
Jeffrey Lipscomb | Sacramento, CA United States | 05/09/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Ward Marston has done a first class job of transferring these 1927-28 recordings for Biddulph. Sadly, this wonderful French ensemble disbanded when its leader, violinist Lucien Capet, died in 1928. What we have here are simply some of the greatest chamber music recordings ever made. Due to their relatively primitive sound, they certainly shouldn't be a listener's only recorded versions. But for exquisite lyricism and subtle rhythmic pulse, these readings should be heard by anyone who has even the slightest interest in great historic recordings.
The Capet's rendition of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" Quartet is very classical and chaste. For me, it belongs to a "pantheon" that includes such superb versions as the 1927 Budapest Quartet (Novello Legend), the Busch Quartet (EMI), the Hollywood Quartet (Testament) and, perhaps my favorite, the more romantic Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet (Westminster LP). I don't quite agree with Amazon critic Leslie Gerber's characterization of this Franck Piano Quintet as "under-powered." True, it lacks the dramatic thrust of my other favorite version (Victor Aller with the Hollywood Quartet on a Testament CD), but the Capet's subtle bouquet has its own rewards and pianist Marcel Ciampi is wonderfully expressive.
The only recording of Schumann's 1st String Quartet that I have heard that even challenges this one was the Paganini Quartet's on an old Liberty LP (coupled with Britten's String Quartet #1).
But the absolute gems here are the Capet's superb accounts of the Debussy & Ravel String Quartets. To my taste, they are the finest-ever readings of both works. The transfers here are not quite as smooth as those on my old Pathe Marconi LP, but they are good enough. My favorite stereo accounts, regrettably not yet on CD, were recorded by the Paganini Quartet on a hard to find Kapp LP (re-issue is needed!). The Andantino of the Capet's Debussy is played more languidly than any other I have heard. The spiritual purity of Lucien Capet here is out of this world (although the Paganini's Henri Temianka runs him a reasonably close second back on earth).
This is one of the all-time great chamber music CD sets.
Highest recommendation."
One of the earliest "Death & the Maiden", in certain aspects
Discophage | France | 09/08/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"My comments will concern only Schubert's quartet. This version was apparently the second "Death & the Maiden" ever to be recorded, shortly after the Budapest Quartet in 1927 (reissued in 1990 on an impossible to find Novello CD - and I haven't found it). Heard not on Biddulph's transfer by Ward Marston but in an earlier CD reissue by Japanese EMI Toshiba of the complete Quatuor Capet recordings, the sound is excellent, a bit thin as can be expected from a recording from that age, but outstandingly clear and vivid and with very little surface noise. Interpretively, in some aspects it shows its age, when the Capet members apply a decidedly old-fashioned approach to phrasing, but in other respects it is an extraordinary reading, still unequalled to this day.
The opening Allegro is a case in point. With all subsequent versions that I know (and these include, to limit myself to those recorded before 1960: the Busch, Calvet, Hollywood Quartets, the Amadeus Quartet's first two recordings, the Wiener Konzerhthaus, Budapest 1953 recording and Hungarian Quartet), "interpreting" Schubert has always meant, alongside with specific choices in matters of phrasing and articulation, varying tempo - with more or less subtlety or forcefulness - within the movement, in order to underline the various moods of the music, give full expression to its drama and lyricism and what not. And mind you, the results can be very convincing and expressive indeed, although my favourites are those that do not excessively coax the line and maintain the forward momentum and tension, such as the Hollywood Quartet in their 1955 recording.
Anyway - not so with Capet and his partners. They hurl into the movement with frenzied energy and dash forward, never letting go until the final bar, like a demented race to the abyss. They are high-strung and unrelenting. You might feel them to be inflexible, I find the approach thrilling and breath-taking. There is some portamento but surprisingly little, and given the breakneck speed, ensemble is understandably sometimes a bit scrappy but intonation is more than acceptable. Among the recent recordings I have heard, only the Emerson Quartet on DG and the Petersen Quartet on Capriccio - at a larger tempo - comes somewhere close to this hair-raising, unrelenting briskness and tension.
Likewise, the Scherzo (3rd movement) conforms to Schubert's tempo indication "Allegro molto" and has energy and drive, and the Finale "Presto" is brisk, nervous and dynamic, but with again some ragged ensemble. However, in the scherzo's central trio the Capets apply a marked slow down of tempo (Schubert writes none) and indulge into some mawkish portamentos. But it is really in the quartet's 2nd movement, the famous Death & the Maiden theme and variations (where the Capets take no repeats), that all the traits of a bygone style of interpretation are most in evidence, and not for the better. The theme is taken much slower than Schubert's indicated "andante con moto", initiating a long string of readings that treat it as a slow-moving funeral march: not entirely inappropriate, of course, but to that the Capets also add some mawkish portamentos, a full load of which also marks (and mars) the 4th, "slow" variation. The tempo is sped up with the first variation, which has rhythmic bite and a peculiarity of phrasing in its first part, the sixteenth-notes being treated as grace notes (but not on their return in the variation's second part). Same tempo is maintained in the next two variations, but the approach doesn't work as well as in the Allegro: the second variation sounds rushed and perfunctory, with imprecise rhythms from the cello, the third is comically cartoon-like, evocative of Rossini's gallop music as used in the Lone Ranger, and the fifth, which begins with a jarring slip from the 1st violin, is a little too rushed for the players' comfort and clean delivery.
Still, despite these not so minor blemishes that mar essentially the second movement, it is a reading that deserves to be known for its still unparalleled radicalism and gripping tension.
"
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1