String Quartets
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Composer or Director: Frantísek Adam Míca, Felix Mendelssohn, Luigi Boccherini
Magazine Review Date: 9/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: CAL1698
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| String Quartet No. 2 |
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer Talich Quartet |
| (6) String Quartets, Movement: No. 2 in E flat, G243 |
Luigi Boccherini, Composer
Luigi Boccherini, Composer Talich Quartet |
| String Quartet No. 6 |
Frantísek Adam Míca, Composer
Frantísek Adam Míca, Composer Talich Quartet |
Composer or Director: Frantísek Adam Míca, Felix Mendelssohn, Luigi Boccherini
Magazine Review Date: 9/1986
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: CAL4698
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| String Quartet No. 2 |
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer Talich Quartet |
| (6) String Quartets, Movement: No. 2 in E flat, G243 |
Luigi Boccherini, Composer
Luigi Boccherini, Composer Talich Quartet |
| String Quartet No. 6 |
Frantísek Adam Míca, Composer
Frantísek Adam Míca, Composer Talich Quartet |
Author: John Duarte
In some ways it doesn't help to be born too close in this time to a supreme genius in a particular field, which may held to account for the comparative neglect of Mendelssohn's string quartets, written in Beethoven's shadow. The affinities between his A minor Quartet and that of Beethoven in the same key (Op. 132) have often been pointed out—and there are echoes of O Bruder, nicht diese Tone in the violin's utterances at the opening of the last movement (the first theme of the Allegro vivace of the first movement recalls Paganini's La campanella too!), but it is a remarkably mature and personal work for a composer who was only 18 years old. The recording of the Talich Quartet is less bright than (and not alwyas so clear as) that of the Alberni on CRD, which underlines the tender warmth of their approach, particularly to the Adagio non lento, but, coupled with the smaller difference in tempo between the Allegretto and the Allegro di molto it frames, rather denatures the Intermezzo.
Frantisek Adam Mica, an amateur musician and professional lawyer, remains almost as shadowy as figure as when MM so described him in reviewing his Quartet No. 8 (8/72). There is much charm and even more craftsmanship in No. 6, but rather too many platitudes and sequential predictabilities for my liking; only when it reaches its final movement does it strike any real spark—much to admire but little to compel. Boccherini's music is as easy to underestimate as it is to overestimate: if it deals heavily in emotional surface phenomena and is not given to soul-searching, it has life, energy, grace, originality (in structure and texture) and a measure of unpredictability, things that are all present in this E flat major Quartet and in the Talich Quartet's performance it. Their playing throughout is superbly sensitive, warm-toned and unanimous in attack, and only the quality of the recording itself, far below today's norm, deters me from recommending this LP as persuasively as I would have liked. The over-brief (and not for reasons of space) sleeve-note is in French only.'
Frantisek Adam Mica, an amateur musician and professional lawyer, remains almost as shadowy as figure as when MM so described him in reviewing his Quartet No. 8 (8/72). There is much charm and even more craftsmanship in No. 6, but rather too many platitudes and sequential predictabilities for my liking; only when it reaches its final movement does it strike any real spark—much to admire but little to compel. Boccherini's music is as easy to underestimate as it is to overestimate: if it deals heavily in emotional surface phenomena and is not given to soul-searching, it has life, energy, grace, originality (in structure and texture) and a measure of unpredictability, things that are all present in this E flat major Quartet and in the Talich Quartet's performance it. Their playing throughout is superbly sensitive, warm-toned and unanimous in attack, and only the quality of the recording itself, far below today's norm, deters me from recommending this LP as persuasively as I would have liked. The over-brief (and not for reasons of space) sleeve-note is in French only.'
String Quartets
String Quartets
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