Search - Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Borodin Quartet :: Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1 - 3/Souvenir De Florence

Great playing, amazing music, unbalanced recording

villegem | canada | 10/24/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"My comment will only focus on the recording as I cannot agree more with other reviewers as far as interpretation and music are concerned.



The teldec engineers have focused on the violins and forgotten that a quartet is a balanced ensemble and thus viola and cello are not accompaniement. Their bias damages the final result and suppress the rich interplay Borodin has been renown for. For instance in the fugue of the second quartet last mvt, the cello is barely audible and all ears are on the violins. The result of this takes its toll when the reverberent acoustics saturates the microphones in some powerful zingers shooting.



It also makes the listening tiring as you have to extract the other instruments lines from the soloists... So 4 stars when it should have been a no brainer 5!



(listening was made on professional JBL studio monitors, Bryston amps and Linn source)"

All-star performance of some sadly neglected music

Joey Joe Joe Jr. Shabadoo | Boston, MA USA | 09/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am a huge fan of the Borodin quartet. I had heard Schubert's quintet performed by the Emerson Quartet, and after hearing the same piece performed by the Borodin Quartet, I was blown away by how overrated the Emerson ensemble is.

That Tchaikovsky's chamber music doesn't receive the fanfare it deserves is understandable; the composer's orchestral works are so widely acclaimed that it tends to cast a shadow over the rest of his oeuvre. However, these are worth a purchase for sure. Tchaikovsky was a master of music writing for strings, and this medium lets him show off his virtuosic side with more ease than the symphonic medium. My bias towards fugues predisposes me to the 2nd quartet and the Souvenir de Florence and their contrapuntal finales; but that is not to say they stand alone on this 2 disc set. Each of the Quartets, as well as the Souvenir de Florence, are filled with charming melodies, folk music overtones, and the driving, rhythmic and dynamic writing style typical of a composer so celebrated for these techniques. The set also includes the B-Flat quartet, a work without opus but nonetheless a nice addition.

The recording is impeccable, as are all of the Borodin's efforts on the Teldec label. If you find yourself interested in Tchaikovsky's chamberworks after listening to these little-known masterpieces, you should check out his Piano Trio, a monstrous piece at nearly 50 minutes in length but well worth your time."