Description
Beethoven: String Quartets Vol. 6, Op. 59 No. 3 'Razumovsky' & Op. 127 – Kodály Quartet, Naxos (CD)
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Product Details
- UPC: 0730099556323
- Catalogue Number: 8.550563
- Brand/Label: Naxos
- Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
- Performers: Kodály Quartet (Attila Falvay, Tamás Szabó, Gábor Fias, György Éder)
- Release Year: 1999 (recorded 27–30 April 1998 and 12–15 October 1998)
- Genre: Classical – Chamber Music/String Quartet
- Country of Producing: [confirm] (no "Made in" line visible in the provided photos)
Product Features
- Format: Audio CD, DDD (fully digital recording), Stereo
- Total playing time: 68:03
- Series: Naxos Beethoven Complete String Quartets, Vol. 6
- Cover artwork: Landscape at Portici, by Joseph Rebell (1828), Musée Condé, Chantilly, France
Overview
This volume pairs the last of the three Razumovsky quartets with one of Beethoven's late masterpieces, and the gap between them says a lot about how far his quartet writing traveled. Op. 59 No. 3 closes out the Razumovsky set with real brilliance — a slow introduction that dissolves into genuine harmonic ambiguity before resolving into an energetic Allegro, and a finale that's essentially a fugal tour de force for four instruments. Then, 18 years later, Prince Galitzin's commission drew Beethoven back to the quartet form for Op. 127, the first of his late quartets and a work on an entirely different plane — deeper, stranger, more inward, with a second-movement Adagio that runs nearly fifteen minutes of pure sustained lyricism. Hearing these two on one disc is a genuine crash course in how radically Beethoven's musical language evolved within a single genre. The Kodály Quartet handles both eras convincingly, bringing the necessary drive to the Razumovsky finale and real patience to Op. 127's long-breathed slow movement. Recorded at Phoenix Studio in Budapest across two separate 1998 sessions, this is one of the more substantial entries in the complete cycle.
Interesting Facts
- Op. 59 No. 3 closes with a fugal finale widely regarded as one of the most technically demanding movements in the entire quartet repertoire.
- Op. 127 was commissioned by Prince Nikolai Galitzin and marks the beginning of Beethoven's late quartets, composed roughly 18 years after the Razumovsky set.
- The disc's two works are linked by dedication history: both were written for Russian nobles resident in Vienna, Count Razumovsky and Prince Galitzin respectively.
- Op. 127's second-movement Adagio runs nearly fifteen minutes, among the longest slow movements in Beethoven's chamber output.
- This recording spans two separate sessions at Phoenix Studio, Budapest, six months apart in 1998, reflecting the extended production schedule of the complete cycle.
Track Listing
String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59 No. 3 (Razumovsky) (31:18)
- Introduzione: Andante con moto – Allegro vivace – 10:53 · 2. Andante con moto quasi allegretto – 9:14 · 3. Menuetto: Grazioso – 5:08 · 4. Allegro molto – 5:55
String Quartet in E Flat Major, Op. 127 (36:37)
- Maestoso – Allegro teneramente – 6:30 · 6. Adagio ma non troppo e molto cantabile – 14:38 · 7. Scherzando vivace – 8:43 · 8. Finale: Alla breve – 6:34
Publishers
Naxos, part of the Naxos Music Group, recorded at Phoenix Studio, Budapest (producer Ibolya Tóth, engineer János Bohus, editing Mária Falvay). Distributed by MVD Music and Video Distribution GmbH, Unterhaching/Munich, Germany.
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