Description
Bartók - The String Quartets (Complete) / Takács Quartet / Hungaroton 3x Audio CD 1995 Stereo
HCD 12502-04-2
ASIN: B006BBBSAS
ASIN: 5553789990
!!! Condition of this CD set is USED VERY GOOD !!!
Béla Bartók has emerged as one of the few modern masters who continue to be regularly performed and recorded. The six string quartets that span his career from 1908 to 1939 are generally regarded as this century's unsurpassed addition to the medium, and they provide an intimate entrée into the world of their withdrawn and enigmatic composer. With this cycle, the Takács Quartet confirms its reputation, against some very fierce competition, as possibly the most cogent, exciting exponent of this music today. They achieve an unusually successful synthesis of the quartets' polarizing components: lyrically haunting "night music," passages of grotesquely ironic humor, and, in the Sixth Quartet, an unrelentingly pervasive sense of desolation and farewell. In the process, the Takács players give visceral life to the extremities of technique Bartók's scores demand. These range from exaggerated glissandi to pizzicati made to snap violently against the fingerboard, at times producing a sound more akin to a percussion battery than a string quartet. The ensemble convincingly traverses Bartók's creative evolution, from the hothouse romanticism of the First Quartet to the Third's densely packed modernist fury and the palindrome structures of the Fourth and Fifth Quartets. Richly nuanced with local color, these accounts are among the best available on disc and will likely become standard-setters. --Thomas May
Tracklist:
String Quartet No. 1 Op. 7 Sz. 40 | 29:02 | |
1.1 | I: Lento | 9:00 |
1.2 | II: Allegretto | 8:20 |
1.3 | (Introduzione) Allegro | 1:37 |
1.4 | III: Allegro Vivace | 10:05 |
String Quartet No. 2 Op. 17 Sz. 67 |
26:31 |
|
1.5 | I: Moderato | 10:15 |
1.6 | II: Allegro Molto Capriccioso | 7:46 |
1.7 | III: Lento | 8:30 |
String Quartet No. 3 Sz. 85 |
15:44 |
|
2.1 | Prima Parte: Moderato | 5:16 |
2.2 | Seconda Parte: Allegro | 5:37 |
2.3 | Ricapitolazione Della Prima Parte: Moderato |
3:04 |
2.4 | Coda: Allegro Molto | 1:47 |
String Quartet No. 4 Sz. 91 |
22:16 |
|
2.5 | I: Allegro | 5:47 |
2.6 | II: Prestissimo, Con Sordino | 2:49 |
2.7 | III: Non Troppo Lento | 5:17 |
2.8 | IV: Allegretto Pizzicato | 2:46 |
2.9 | V: Allegro Molto | 5:37 |
String Quartet No. 5 Sz. 102 |
30:01 |
|
3.1 | I: Allegro | 7:37 |
3.2 | II: Adagio Molto | 5:28 |
3.3 | III: Scherzo: Alla Bulgarese (Vivace) | 5:10 |
3.4 |
IV: Andante | 4:50 |
3.5 | V: Finale: Allegro Vivace | 6:56 |
String Quartet No. 6 Sz. 114 |
28:28 |
|
3.6 | I: Mesto - Vivace | 7:21 |
3.7 | II: Mesto - Marcia | 7:30 |
3.8 | III: Mesto: Burletta - Moderato | 6:52 |
3.9 | IV: Mesto | 6:45 |
- Cello – András Fejér
- Composed By – Béla Bartók
- Design – Péter Nagy (3)
- Engineer [Balance] – István Berényi
- Liner Notes [Music Notes] – János Kárpáti
- Photography By – Sándor Kertész
- Producer [Recording] – András Székely
- Strings – Takács Quartet
- Viola – Gábor Ormai
- Violin [1] – Gábor Takács-Nagy
- Violin [2] – Károly Schranz