Description
Beethoven: String Quartets (Complete) Vol. 1, Op. 18 Nos. 1 & 2 – Kodály Quartet, Naxos (CD)
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Product Details
- UPC: 4891030505582
- Catalogue Number: 8.550558
- Brand/Label: Naxos
- Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
- Performers: Kodály Quartet
- Release Year: 1993 (recorded 22–25 October 1991)
- Genre: Classical – Chamber Music/String Quartet
- Country of Producing: [confirm] (this section of the back cover is covered by a sticker in the provided photos)
Product Features
- Format: Audio CD, DDD (fully digital recording), Stereo
- Total playing time: 55:33
- Series: Naxos Beethoven Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1
- Cover artwork: portrait of Beethoven, 1801
Overview
This opens Naxos's complete cycle of Beethoven's string quartets with the earliest pair from Op. 18 — quartets written when Beethoven was still working carefully within the Haydn-Mozart tradition, even as his own voice was starting to push through. Quartet No. 1 in F major stands out for its slow movement, which Beethoven reportedly connected privately to the tomb scene in Romeo and Juliet — a rare instance of him hinting at a programmatic source. Quartet No. 2 in G major is lighter and more conversational, closer in spirit to Haydn's wit than to the darker Beethoven quartets that would follow decades later. The Kodály Quartet plays both with a clean, well-balanced Classical sensibility rather than projecting later Beethoven's intensity backward onto these earlier works — the right call for music that's genuinely still finding its footing stylistically. Recorded at Budapest's Unitarian Church, this is a solid entry point into Beethoven's quartet output as a whole, whether starting the complete cycle from the beginning or just wanting these two relatively accessible early works.
Interesting Facts
- Beethoven privately associated the slow movement of Quartet No. 1 with the tomb scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, one of his rare acknowledged programmatic references.
- Op. 18 was Beethoven's first venture into the string quartet form, composed relatively late compared to his early symphonic and piano works, likely out of respect for Haydn and Mozart's towering achievements in the genre.
- Quartet No. 2 earned the nickname "Compliments" quartet in some older sources for its polite, conversational exchanges between the instruments.
- This recording is part of Naxos's complete cycle of Beethoven's string quartets, a major undertaking spanning his entire compositional development in the form.
- The Kodály Quartet recorded extensively for Naxos across multiple composers' complete quartet cycles during the early 1990s in Budapest.
Track Listing
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1
- Allegro con brio – 10:20 · 2. Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato – 10:33 · 3. Scherzo: Allegro molto – 3:39 · 4. Allegro – 5:54
String Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2
- Allegro – 7:56 · 6. Adagio cantabile – 6:33 · 7. Scherzo: Allegro – 4:46 · 8. Allegro molto quasi presto – 5:28
Publishers
Naxos, part of the Naxos Music Group, recorded at the Unitarian Church, Budapest (producer Ibolya Tóth, engineer János Bohus, music notes Keith Anderson). Distributed by MVD Music and Video Distribution GmbH, Unterhaching/Munich, Germany.
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