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Reviews: Beethoven: Complete String Quintets - Quartetto d’archi di Venezia

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Reviews: 1

Review by Cornan October 10, 2008 (5 of 6 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:  
I'm happy to have this "complete" edition, though in reality two of Beethoven's three string (viola)quintets are re-workings of previous works. According to the liner notes these re-workings amount to considerable improvement over the original works (the Septet for strings and winds and a Trio Sonata).

The little Fugue in D at the end is all too short. It has an interesting subject which is quickly swallowed up into typically dense Beethoven counterpoint. Too bad Beethoven didn't work out a longer development.

The musicianship is first rate technically - I listened to one of the quintets more closely than the others and found no fault in the playing.

This SACD uses a conservative multi-channel approach. There was a little bit in the sub-woofer and pure ambience (fairly distant at that, given that this is chamber music) in the surround channels, a polar opposite of the Tacet recordings (buy them if you like to be immersed in the music). I played this SACD on two sets of speakers witn no center channel so I can't comment on use of the center channel.

I thought the sound stage favored the right channel a bit on the main set of speakers, but on my widely separated office speakers I didn't notice it, but of course there wasn't much of an image with such widely separated speakers. On my main speakers there was definitely an image in front of me; it seemed easiest to place the violins. I wouldn't have minded the cellos expanded to the edges more (maybe 1st violin and 2nd cello, 2nd violin and 2nd viola, 1st cello and 1st viola).

If you have spent some years (like myself) playing the viola or otherwise have a fondness for viola quintets, you will probably appreciate this SACD. (And don't forget the Dvorak viola quintet, Opus 97, overlooked next to its more famouse quartet sibling)

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