Wednesday, 5.30.07, 12:52 pm
New Releases: CDs
Bruckner, Symphony No. 6, Bernard Haitink
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
I was reminded just how much I like the Sixth Symphony of Bruckner when I heard a performance of Bruckner’s (allegedly) most popular symphony, the Fourth, last Monday in Rome. The Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Marek Janowski took a crack at the “Romantic”. But where a preceding Horn Concerto by Mozart (No. 3 – Alessio Allegrini blowing his own horn) was solid, sumptuous, with a skilled and softly playing soloist, Bruckner did not quite come across. The very reserved applause from a sparse audience in Renzo Piano’s gorgeous if acoustically limited Sala Santa Cecilia, the biggest of three ‘scarabs‘ sitting on the “Auditorium” complex, suggested that the audience didn’t ‘get’ Bruckner. Not surprising, because neither did the orchestra. There were fine touches amid able music-making, few enough sordid brass moments – but the result sounded like I imagine it would if a German were to recite from the Decamerone or Comedia in perfectly proper Italian, but without actually understanding the language.
 A. Bruckner, Symphony No.6, Haitink/Dresdner Staatskapelle |
If Bruckner’s Fourth didn’t speak to me, it was not only because the orchestra with a history even longer than its name (it made its first music in 1585 as the Congregazione dei Musici sotto l’invocazione della Beata Vergine e dei Santi Gregorio e Cecilia) didn’t know what to do with the Austrian composer nor bothered much with a wide range of dynamics. I just can’t think of the Fourth as quite as great as it is always made out to be. Come to think of it – and given the right recording – I like any of the other mature (from no. 3 onward) Bruckner symphonies better than the Fourth. Certainly the Sixth, rarely played and the least recorded of the “mature” Symphonies. I learned to love this symphony, composed between 1879 and 1881 and dedicated to his landlord, in Sergiu Celibidache’s broad-as-can-be recording on EMI. The recording is a little difficult to get but worth every penny for the warmth it conveys and the details that emerge from it. His rendition achieved something that Jochum (DG), Karajan (DG), Wand (RCA) and Klemperer (EMI) had not quite managed. And ever since I’ve been looking for a recording that can match Celibidache while perhaps offering a tighter first and fourth movement. Kent Nagano’s recording was very good (HMU 901901), but still no match.
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That match has now crossed my desk in form of Bernard Haitink’s live recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden on the Profil label’s “Edition Staatskapelle Vol.14″ disc. Profil is Günter Hänssler’s new label and issues live recordings that range between the obscure and definitive collectors’ items. (A German (!) Katja Kabanova from 1949 , actually a fine performance in surprisingly good sound represents the former, Günter Wand’s performances with the Munich Philharmonic the latter).
With this 2003 Bruckner Sixth, Profil has issued a recording that should enter the mainstream. Taut rhythms in broadly played music, excellent playing, and loving execution make this as engaging a Bruckner Symphony as you could possibly hope to hear. At 57 minutes Haitink is, if anything, on the brisker side, though he never sounds it. The A-major Majestoso rises in its full might without being ponderous. The Adagio, one of Bruckner’s finest next to that of the Seventh, flows gloriously. The Finale is full of the zest that had given rise to Bruckner punning that the Sixth was his coyest (or ’sauciest’) symphony (”Die Sechste ist die Keckste”). Excellent sound does its part to make this release a winner. Indeed, it’s so good, it might convince even Italians of Bruckner’s genius.
Friday, 5.18.07, 4:26 pm
New Releases: CDs
accentus, “transcriptions2″
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
Reviewing CDs is often guided by odd habits. I mentioned earlier this week that I am still tempted by a label’s reputation alone or the cover of CD. Another habit is that I generally don’t bother with compilations – perhaps for no other reason than that I don’t know how to organize such multiple-composer CDs in my collection, alphabetized by composer.
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It sounds banal, and perhaps it is, but irrationality knows no boundaries, as we know. Rarely am I tempted to break out of those habits. Perhaps an otherwise unavailable Bruckner Symphony with Furtwängler can’t be had outside a such a box. Or an artist is so immesurably pleasing that I must have all he ever recorded. Usually a combination of the two.
The conductor Josef Krips or the Pianist Clifford Curzon are two such musicians – incapable of producing an unmusical note… revealing, sometimes enlightening, even in the least of their efforts. The Decca box of Krips – in particular for the Dvor(ák Cello Concerto with Zara Nelsova, the Haydn Symphonies, pre-Concertgebouw Mozart, and an early Schumann Fourth is such an example. (The Schubert 9th with the LSO that I really wanted isn’t in that set – but a lovely Schubert 8th is.)
Ditto the various Decca boxes of Clifford Curzon, a sheer delight of a pianist and not widely enough enjoyed, despite the high acclaim of his Mozart and Brahms Piano Concerto recordings. (Boxes I and III are good starting points – I know no musician or alert listener who can resist his deeply felt touch.)
 accentus, transcriptions 2 |
One such CD that I would normally have ignored, but was somehow tempted to give a listen, is called “transcriptions 2″ – a sequel to the choral group accentus’ “transcriptions” disc. I do like transcriptions (Reger-Bach, Schoenberg-Bach, Webern-Bach, Zender-Schubert) – but a hodge-podge of a-capella versions of various orchestral works and songs?? But it’s on naïve, a label I love. And it looks extraordinarily good in black, white, and magenta with that big eye on the cover. All that was enough to intriuge me.
Good that I did. It took, without exaggeration, seconds for me to surrender to this recording. Oddly familiar unfamiliar with something that sounds like Chant meets Vivaldi yet smacks of Pärt. “Winter”, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is the answer to the mental question mark that had me hum along without knowing, at first, what I was listening to. In the Franck Krawczyk transcription for double choir and continuo it emerges as a new work with a new meaning. The way it works as set to the words of a Requiem Mass (Requiem, Benedictus, Lux aeterna) shows this transcription as truly a genial creation.
Then comes the piano accompanied choral version of Litanei D 343 (”Ruh’n in Frieden alle Seelen”), a Schubert song so haunting already in itself that I always hit the repeat button and get moist eyes. In Clytus Gottwald’s transcription it becomes so powerfully moving that I have found in it another piece of music where I invariably and involuntarily start weeping by the 3rd bar. (Fasolt’s ode to love in Das Rheingold, Strauss’ “Beim Schlafengehn’”, the opening of the St.Matthew and St.John Passions are other such works.) It is difficult not just to fall on ones’ knees in this musical prayer for All Souls’ Day:
Rest in peace, all souls,
those whose fearful torment is finished,
those whose sweet dream is over,
who, sated with life or scarcely born,
have departed the world:
all souls, rest in peace!Souls of loving girls whose tears cannot be counted,
abandoned by a faithless lover,
and disowned by the blind world:
all who have departed hence -
rest, all souls, in peace!And those who never smiled the sun,
and lay awake on thorns beneath the moon
who will be face to face one day
with God in purest light of heaven:
all who have departed hence,
all souls rest in peace!
This opening salvo of transcriptions 2 is so overwhelming that the memory and impression of the subsequent 12 works suffers – at least to these ears. There is much beauty in other Schubert transcriptions (”Grablied”, “Der Wegweiser”, “Nacht und Träume”) or Mahler (”Die zwei blauen Augen”, “Scheiden und Meiden”), Bach, Wagner, Prokofiev, Scriabin, Ravel, and Debussy – and all have brought me some joy and most more than that… but ultimately it is the Schubert “Litanei” and the Vivaldi reworking on their own that make this CD a brilliant musical experience. 13 minutes that can conjure sunlight, inspire faith, move to tears.
Friday, 5.11.07, 10:38 am
New Releases: CDs
CD Reviewing, Library Building, and Related Temptations
"Library Building" posts are reviews of recordings I find to be essential to every good collection of classical music - recordings of interpretations that are the touchstone for their repertoire.
Not judging a book by its cover is sound advice, lest you are looking for the kind of ‘book’ the merits of which are best displayed on the cover. When buying CDs, one might well be advised not to buy them by their cover, either. (Which was in any case more tempting when CDs were LPs and their covers large, glamorous, elaborate.) But thus I have fared surprisingly well doing just that. For one, I have just about every Vivaldi Opera on the naïve label – and I’d lie if I claimed that the strangely fascinating and evocatively beautiful women on them had nothing to do with it. (Note that I do not own “Tito Manlio“.) These covers that grace the entire – very ambitious – Vivaldi Edition, including their latest (re-)release of Mandolin and Lute music with the stupendous Rolf Lislevand, are unabashedly beautiful and have an aesthetic value that is their own, ample, justification. Critics who have derided this as a cheap marketing gimmick (these ladies are fully clad, it should be noted – this is not the early-music version of the Pirelli Calendar) should consider that a beautiful person superbly photographed has, by sheer beauty, an aesthetic claim much in the way great architecture does, or reproductions of paintings of great masters. That I have fared well with this shallow selection process may have been luck or the fact that Vivaldi can’t ever be less than pleasing or because that particular label only records reliably good performers. Which brings me to a more common and perfectly reasonable way of shopping for CDs ‘by their cover’: Trusting a particular record label. I’ve started my CD collection more or less like that. Certain labels were associated with great performers and works – and I would chose among those labels to be safe from getting a clunker. It is that kind of reputation that is a label’s highest praise – especially when it can retain the reputation among the cognoscenti.
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When I began buying CDs – fortunately I started my obsessive collecting phase after I had gotten my first CD player – Deutsche Grammophon was one of those labels. And before I really knew who Emil Gilels was (Brahms Piano Concertos) or what kind of works Beethoven’s late Piano Sonatas might turn out to be (Pollini), or what a certain Krystian Zimerman might be doing with the Debussy Préludes or a Maria João Pires with the Chopin Nocturnes, or how to best judge what might make a performance of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony great (Karajan III) – I went with the ‘Yellow Label” and fared rather well. There were other labels with similar cachée when I grew up in Germany: Philips Classics, London/Decca, and, to an extend, EMI. Smaller labels however, no matter how excellent, were ignored… not exactly at my peril but much limiting my choice. With the seasoned collector, the majors usually don’t enjoy the same status they once did – and labels from which I would choose blindly are now rare. ECM remains in that position, and Harmonia Mundi comes close. I still look forward to new releases from the Universal Group, but I can’t remember when EMI has last issued something truly exciting. Warner is mostly busy re-issuing, but can surprise with occasional gems. Sony offers little that is noteworthy (though Baiba Skride’s Janácek/Shostakovich CD stands out), but RCA and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (all part of the same company) still do. At this point I scour through the releases of any and all labels, no matter how obscure, and it is often there that new favorites are found and happy discoveries made. And sometimes there are those new recordings that dislodge long-held favorites from their spot in the sun. In short: labels alone can offer some helpful guidance and shopping like that can bear fruit. But it is better, still, to cast ones net wider – beyond the known and familiar. This is where CD reviewers come in. An essential part of CD reviewing, so much up front, is subjectivity. The idea of “the best” (”the best Beethoven Fifth“, “the best Messiah“, et al.) can be all but forgotten. If it were that easy, there’d be a lot fewer CDs issued and bought these days. Nonetheless, you’ll still get an answer to that question from any music critic, because the idea of “the best” is so desireable for consumer and reviewer alike. Thick reference books seduce with the promise of listing “the best” – and they are useful guides to recordings that have impressed schooled ears with extraordinary exposure. But recommendations often reflect the author’s age, nationality and stylistic predilections more than they would like to admit. (The Penguin and Gramophone guides, for example, have pro-British biases that are almost comical.) I found that comparing recommendations from three guides provided the best guidance – especially when checked against my own ears. I also found that there were plenty false positives (unmerited raves), but fewer false negatives (unmerited bashings). With record companies as the big advertisers in such magazines, putting down a recording is often bad business. Reviewers often prefer to be bland instead and really sticking it to the occasional recording for the appearance of ‘critical balance’. Yet other reviewers have very personal biases: Dan Vroon from the “American Record Guide” and David Hurwitz from “Classics Today” for example have it out for Simon Rattle (who must have shot their dog). Gramophone Magazine in turn has come around to love everything he does. One might conclude that reviews are useless – but they aren’t. (Of course I would say that.) Even if it makes a difference to how a reviewer hears a CD depending on how his or her mood is that day and how and when he or she got out of bed, reviews still offer guidance. They are, much like film reviews, all the more useful if one gets to know the reviewer’s tastes better. If someone hates HIP practice, I know either well to ignore derision of the latest Herreweghe CD – or am even intrigued by it. Aside, there is the matter of discovering works and interpretations when listening to several dozen new CDs a month that can only benefit a curious reader. This is all by way of introducing the CD reviews I will include among my posts on this blog. They will be reviews of (more or less) new releases and “Library Building” reviews. The former are of CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among those that I come across every month (so far they have included Rawsthorne String Quartets, Pletnev’s Beethoven Concertos, and Shostakovich Quartets). The latter will be reviews of recordings I find to be essential to every good collection of classical music – recordings that have stood the test of time, interpretations that are the touchstone for all future recordings of the same repertoire, CDs I would not want to be without. There is more than just a hint of the idea of “the best” involved in that, but then I didn’t claim I was going to resist that temptation. Perhaps these reviews will kindle some interest – and perhaps discussion as well. Since the comment function on this blog has gone south, I will happily receive (and respond to) comments, feedback, shameless praise, and insults via e-mail at jlaurson[at]ia-forum[dot]org. 
Friday, 5.4.07, 2:37 pm
Hearing Mstislav Rostropovich
On April 27th, Mstislav Rostropovich died at in Moscow, age 80. The world mourns one of the greatest cellists and indeed one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Musicians like Rostropovich, Fischer-Dieskau, von Karajan, Sviatoslav Richter, Heifetz, Stern, Horowitz, Bernstein defined classical music for many of us – and are indelibly connected with what might be perceived – wrong or right – with a Golden Age of classical music. Especially of recorded classical music. Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to 1994, Washington (despite being such a transient town) has a special relationship with Rostropovich. His name and his connections did much to bring the NSO greater renommé and leave it in a state from where Maestro Slatkin could qualitatively take it to the level it has now achieved. Still, it won’t be as a conductor that Mr. Rostropovich will be remembered – and his last concert in Washington, exactly one year ago, is better forgotten if one wishes to remember him as a great musician.
I cannot claim, even now, that I was ever in the Rostropovich fan-club – and I cringed reading The Gramophone Magazine’s hagiographic “Rostropovich Issue” in April. But having been a difficult man, someone above all concerned with his own image (Sviatoslav Richter, for example, admired his art but wasn’t too keen on Rostropovich’s putting Rostropovich ahead of the music), someone who was never shy to posture as ‘Shostakovich’s Messenger’… all that makes him no less a cellist. He lives on in our memories and, because memories need to be jogged every so often, through recordings.
 Bach Suites |
He has left over 100 recordings as a soloist and several dozens as a conductor. A notable absence in the list below is his 1995 EMI recording of the Bach Cello Suites. This is not an oversight but because, for all its fame and acclaim, the recording bores me to tears. Whether he is blisteringly fast or laggardly, he is dynamically limited, listless, and without any hint of dance to be found anywhere. The recording has moments of beauty, but they are few and far between and not even for Bach’s sake can I sit through the whole thing to wait for them. For the Suites, one best look (or listen) elsewhere.
 Dvor(ák Cello Concerto |
That being out of the way, I should like to embrace one of the classic Rostropovich recordings: his Dvor(ák Cello Concerto under Karajan, coupled on DG Originals with the Tchaikovsky Roccoco Variations. If I had to turn a complete classical music neophyte on to the genre with five CDs, this one would definitively be among them. I feel strongly about Du Pre/Celibidache which is of one piece like molten stone (Teldec) and Queyras/Bélohlávek which is the most felt in the slow movement (Harmonia Mundi), but none quite nudge the Russian/German combination from the top of my list.
 Brahms, Cello Sonatas |
Rudolf Serkin is another artist more famous than admired by me… perhaps because I only know him through recordings where few quite satisfy me, least of which his flawed late recordings on Deutsche Gramophon. But there are the Brahms Cello Sonatas with Rostropovich – and perhaps it is the latter’s smooth, loving, unabashedly (and wholly appropriate) romantic playing that has Serkin rise to the occasion with an equally brilliant and sensitive account. The marvelous Starker/Sebok recording (Mercury Living Presence) may have a better balance between the musicians – but when the playing is like this, Rostropovich’s overly dominant cello is no distraction. (DG)
 Beethoven Triple |
The Beethoven “Triple Concerto” is a work that doesn’t live up to the composer’s other concertos, but when it is played well, I gladly listen to it all the same. There are more great recordings of it than I’d want to own, but the super-all-star extravaganza of Rostropovich / Richter / Oistrakh / Karajan / Berlin Philharmonic (EMI) is rightly among the top, especially for those who wish three virtuosic soloists to take the part, rather than a ‘piano trio’. Argerich/Maisky/R.Capuçon/EMI, Aimard/Hagen/Zehetmair/Warner, and the Eroica Trio/EMI are other splendid accounts… but for the combination alone, the Russian trio is the one to go with.
 DSCH Cello Concerto No.1 |
An old (1959) but nigh unbeatable classic is the Sony Classics premiere recording of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1 with Rostropovich and Eugene Ormandy with his Philadelphia Orchestra. Make what you will of Rostropovich’s annexing the Shostakovich-halo by constantly reminding everyone of just how strong and great their friendship was, this concerto was written for him, premiered by him, and this first recordig of it catches ‘Slava’ in his prime as regards (musical) zeal and technical skill.
 Britten Cello Suites 1&2, Sonata |
Rostropovich laudably championed contemporary music, especially when it was dedicated to him. As are, for example, Britten’s three Cello Suites, the first two of which Rostropovich recorded for Decca in the 60s. They are coupled with Britten’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in C major, Op. 65. (The composer proves his incredible mastery of the piano, even if – again – the cello dominates.) For fans of Britten’s music at least, this is a ‘must-have’.
 Myaskovsky Cello Concerto et al. |
Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante and Rachmaninov’s Vocalise are splendidly served by the – then – seemingly infallible Rostropovich in his 1956/57 recordings. The best reason to own this EMI “Greatest Recordings of the Century” release is the Myaskovsky Cello Concerto, though. It is a masterpiece from a much underrated composer – and until Jamie Walton’s recording is released or Misha Maisky’s re-released, Rostropovich is the only good choice, anyway.
 Prokofiev/DSCH VCs #1 |
 Prokofiev/DSCH VCs #2 |
If these are my favorite recordings with the cellist Rostropovich, there are some that are worth noting where he conducts. His undeniable understanding of the music was, when coupled with outstanding collaborators, enough to overcome his limitations as a conductor. His recordings with Maxim Vengerov and the London Symphony Orchestra of the Prokofiev and Shostakovich Violin Concertos (one of each on two Telarc CDs – lest you find the European Warner/Apex re-issue with the two Shostakovich concertos extracted unto one disc) are superb for either composer – and despite ever-stiffening competition in the Shostakovich (last year alone I’ve heard excellent new recordings of Daniel Hope, Leila Josefowicz, Arabella Steinbacher, and Sergey Khachatryan) they are still the recordings to judge all others against.
 Prokofiev/Rachmaninov PCs #3 (SACD) |
Another double-Russian/Russian combination is very appealing: Prokofiev/Rachmaninov with Rostropovich/Pletnev. Piano Concertos No.3 of both composers make as compelling a combination as an odd one – and the excellent playing, filled with excitement and delightful accents and exclamation marks, all in stunning sound from DG, make this a most worthy traversal of both concertos, even if you already have them in other versions.
 DSCH: Sy. #8 (SACD) |
Of his Shostakovich symphonies (the complete set – largely with the NSO – is available on Teldec), I cannot recommend many when there is always an interpretation that I’d much rather hear. The early recordings are uneven, lacking in the necessary tension, and are often let down by the NSO’s lack of will or ability. Any complete set I know is preferable, be it Jansons (EMI), Barshai (Brilliant), Kitajenko (Capriccio), Kondrashin (Aulos/Melodiya) or Haitkink (Decca). The LSO recordings on the orchestras’ own label are better, by-and-large, but hugely overrated. His Eighth on that label, though, is a worthy contender. Slowness in that symphony is no detriment to the grim and stark atmosphere and I rate his account above Gergiev (Philips) and Wiggelsworth (BIS), alongside Barshai and Kitajenko and only marginally behind Jansons.
 DSCH: Lady Macbeth |
If Rostropovich had recorded nothing but Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District, he’d have done the world of music – and the composer – a service enough to forget all the gratuitous boasting I’ve griped about before. With his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya as Katerina Izmailova, this is the recording that put the opera firmly back on the map (though still not firmly enough for the masterpiece it is) and it is the only recording you need to think of acquiring, if you are looking for Audio-only, at least. Any and all of these recordings serve his memory in the best possible way.
Thursday, 5.3.07, 10:23 am
New Releases: CDs
Shostakovich, String Quartets, Jerusalem Quartet
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
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From when I first heard the Jerusalem Quartet recording of Shostakovich Quartets (Nos. 1, 4 & 9) my ears perked notably. This was Shostakovich in heat, played with great idiomatic and musical understanding – in short: stunning.After hearing live performances of the young quartet – 3/4 of Russian descent – and its current, second Shostakovich release, I consider it the finest quartet of its generation in Shostakovich. Their first release (HMU 901865) is among the very best single discs of Shostakovich quartets available.
There are no “early” quartets – so seeing quartet No.1 should not scare anyone away as a possible peace of modestly inspired DSCH-juvenilia. In fact, it’s one of his most entertaining, even if it was just meant to be a test-run for the composer to see how he got along with the format of the string quartet. Very well, he must have realized… and 14 others – many of them masterpieces – followed. Quartet No.4 in D-Major, op.83 (one of my perennial favorites along Nos. 1, 3, and 9) with its long pedal points underneath a firm pulse, its beautifully orchestral and melodic second movement, the subtle nervousness and two gently irresistible pulses tip-toe-galloping over more open string pedal points of the Allegretto third movement, all before cumulating in the pizzicato-heavy Allegretto finale is performed with the technical wizardry expected these days, and the emotional investment so rarely heard anymore. The same goes for the other two works here.
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If the first disc is made up of more or less upbeat and joyously exciting works, the coupling of Quartet No.6, op.101, the great No.8, op.110, and No.11, op.122 (HMU 901953) has an altogether darker, more somber hue. But the strengths of the Jerusalem Quartet come out in these works just as much. From the Allegretto of op.101 to the Finale – Moderato of op.122, they give a riveting account that is haunting in its painful moods, biting in its irony, irresistable in its drive. Especially in Quartet No.8, where the cool perfection of the Emerson Quartet (DG 638802) the Hagen Quartett (DG 650502) work best, the Jerusalem Quartet shows an alternative that is equally dark but gripping instead of offering a sense of détaché. Their vigor in the second movement (Allegro) is almost freightening, the haunting ´fanfare´ of the first violin in the Allegro, bone-chilling.
The cynical wit and dark humor of op.122 is combined with a compelling forward movement as the Jerusalem Quartet saws away on their instruments, unstoppably buzzing and twitching away. The delicacy in the third and fourth movements of op.101 is touching like I have not heard before – the transition from Lento to Lento gently indulging in music that, although in need of getting used to for newcomers, can´t fail to touch. If there is a group – on disc – that can please as much as the Borodin’s first two cycles do, this is it. And amid the plethora of complete Shostakovich cycles that has come on the market over the last ten years, this quartet is one that I actively wish will throw their hat in the ring, too! Both releases are very highly recommended.
Speaking of complete cycles: The Emerson String Quartet’s award winning (live) traversal has been reissued by DG for the Shostakovich Centenary. When it came out, it was the only complete modern cycle on a big label and it blew people away for its painfully acute precision and cleanliness. It competed only with the lovely, but aged, Fitzwilliams cycle on Decca and the spottily available second cycle of the Borodin Quartet (variously offered on Melodiya, EMI, BMG and currently out of print.) If you can somehow get your hands on that Borodin cycle, do it. It’s a set of such a quality, it could make thieves of honest men. Warmth and Russian flair, sometimes raw, sometimes sweet, but always with pure emotions… all this is of paramount importance in these works and few quartets knew or know them better than the Borodin. The Quintet together with a certain Sviatoslav Richter also sweetens the deal. The Emerson set’s assets, however, are no longer quite as impressive as the competition has increased manifold. Now there are the Brodsky Quartet cycle on Warner Classics, the Sorrel Quartet on Chandos (the same company also re-issues the first Borodin cycle, recorded before quartets 14 and 15 were composed), the St. Petersburg Quartet on hyperion, Brilliant Classics’ acclaimed Rubio Quartet cycle, the Danel Quartet (on Fuga Libera), Shostakovich Quartet (re-issued on Regis), the Eder on Naxos, and the Manhattan String Quartet cycle on Ess.a.y Recordings. You can find any range of technical precociousness and perfection coupled with different levels of gutsy, emotional playing. Top recommendations are (if you can’t find “Borodin II”) the Rubio, Danel, Shostakovich, and Borodin I cycles.