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Posted by W. Dirks
on December 23, 2008, 5:55 am
220.130.134.109
Some extra comments on the review of the Beethoven quartet disc by the Henschel Quartet (this may be late, but I just saw it):
The Henschels, in the opening of No. 12, Op. 127, probably do sound "tentative," but their tempo still makes the music more "maestoso" than most other quartets, and I find the clarity and vitality of playing (and recording) remarkable in the way that it reveals the interaction of all the voices. This is my favorite string quartet, and probably my favorite recording of it. But oddly, the Henschels' recording has one flaw, in common with almost every other recording of the Op. 127 quartet. In the coda of the final movement, Beethoven actually indicates that the tempo should be "fast" or "faster" than what preceded. In the recording on Vanguard by the Yale Quartet, you can hear what happens when string quartets actually respect the score: the coda becomes light, witty, and rollicking, a suitable ending that matches the character of the movement as a whole. But in the Henschels' reading (and that of most other string quartets), their drastic slowing of the tempo makes it sound weird and ghostly, as if the music has suddenly stepped into a hall of mirrors, and is bent, stretched, and distorted. Not at all an appropriate ending for the movement. If not for that, I'd call this a fantastic recording, and I still enjoy the rest of the performance tremendously.
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