Brahms & Schumann: Complete String Quartets
Brahms:
- String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51 No. 1
- String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51 No. 2
- String Quartet No. 3 in B flat major, Op. 67
Schumann:
- String Quartets, Op. 41 Nos. 1-3
Performed by the Melos Quartet of Stuttgart
Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann were great friends; and it was Schumann who wrote an article to identify the great promise of Brahms as an innovative and promising composer. Later, after Schumann’s death, Brahms remained a very close friend of Schumann’s wife, Clara.
It may be thought strange that these six quartets are not more often recorded together. And the Melos Quartet of Stuttgart remain almost unrivalled in their ability to perform the classical German music of these quartets.
Schumann’s three quartets give the listener the lyrical song for which Schumann became famous through his amazing Lieder. Brahms, on the other hand, wrote and then burnt at least 20 string quartets before he allowed the D minor work Op.51 No.1 to be published.
Here are some comments from the press about these performers:
“Their playing is immediately enjoyable for its warmth, its rhythmic impulse and its very positive directness… The Melos, with their pungent accentuation, are splendid in the tempo risoluto variation of the second movement (of Schumann’s Third Quartet) and in the dancing finale, just as they are in the exuberant vitality of the First Quartet’s concluding Presto.”
…………………………………………Gramophone Magazine, April 1989
Here is an audio recording of the Melos Quartet performing Haydn. Note the fine, sensitive style of playing!
Tags: Melos Quartet, Schumann, Brahms