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Label:
  Myrios - http://www.myriosmusic.com/
Serial:
  MYR006
Title:
  Hagen Quartett 30
Description:
  Beethoven: String Quartet in E minor Op. 59 No. 2 "Razumovsky", Mozart: String Quartet in E flat major K.428, Webern: Fünf Sätze Op. 5, Bagatellen Op. 9

Hagen Quartett
Track listing:
 
Genre:
  Classical - Chamber
Content:
  Stereo/Multichannel
Media:
  Hybrid
Recording type:
  DSD
Recording info:
 

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Related titles: 2


 
Reviews: 3

Site review by Polly Nomial August 4, 2011
Performance:   Sonics:  
The text for this review has been moved to the new site. You can read it here:

http://www.HRAudio.net/showmusic.php?title=7016#reviews

Review by Polarius T October 30, 2011 (6 of 8 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:  
This is simply a stupendous release. For anyone accustomed to hearing this repertory through analog-era recordings, it will take some time to get one's ears adjusted to hearing all the multiple levels of finesse, power, and variety that this quartet is capable of bringing out in the music.

The Hagens' technical skills level is awesome, very probably unmatched today (or even in history) (with the possible exception of the Ardittis), and nowhere else have I heard their abilities being put to such revelatory and exciting use as here. At the same time, their interpretive learning curve has been really remarkable, too (I wasn't too taken by their technically impressive but otherwise rather unengaging Bartok, for instance, or equally engrossed by some of their earlier Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert), and here they combine their capability for extreme tonal, timbral, and dynamic variegation with a seemingly total understanding of the inner nature of the works they play, their character and their meaning. This is simply the finest and by far the most impressive Mozart quartet playing I have heard, and I would not hesitate to say the same about the Beethoven, too, were it not for my fondness for the different kind of refinement and the more immediately warm, "old-world" humanity that the Italians embodied to the core (in, e.g., Beethoven: String Quartets Op. 18 No. 6, Op. 59 No. 1 - Quartetto Italiano, Beethoven: String Quartets Op. 59 Nos. 2 & 3 - Quartetto Italiano, and Haydn, Beethoven: String Quartets - Quartetto Italiano).

As if that weren't enough, the highlight of the disc is nevertheless the Hagen's Webern. It is there where their best qualities really come to the fore. The masterly executed silences and pauses, the infinite gradations of tone, texture, and phrasing that the players, both individually and as an ensemble, bring to the service of these pieces, and the smooth transitions between the notes, pauses, figures, gestures, and contrasts that galvanize it all into a complete, gorgeously flowing whole, are just astonishing; I have never heard the like of it up until now. The infinitesimally accurate micro shadings alone leave you sitting at the edge of your chair with a new kind of consciousness of the work being performed. With this recording, the Hagens will win many new friends for the composer -- and perhaps for the Second Viennese School in general by tearing down many prejudices -- but let's hope there is still more to come (in the booklet notes, there is some indication of a more long-lasting relationship established between the quartet and the label). I never thought it would happen in this life, but the LaSalle will now be taken the place of honor they have for me forever and all by themselves occupied in this repertory.

On this evidence alone I'm ready to proclaim the Hagens the greatest currently active chamber music group (and one of the very finest in the known history). If all this sounds like gushing, it's for good reasons which you should discover yourself if at all you are interested in hearing how fabulous modern-day quartet playing can really be. The Hagens might change your perception not just of what can be attained, performance-wise, with this form of classical music, but also of parts of the literature that you thought you were well familiar already.

To cap it all, the recording itself is excellent and reveals all the nuances of playing that are necessary for properly comprehending this music, without sounding too close-up, oversized, or dry (it's a 5.0 recording, which even more makes me regret not having more than a stereo setup).

My SACD release of the season thus far and, together with Abbado’s Brandenburgs, the most deeply satisfying overall listening experience I have had all year. Both show the way forward for music-making today and, while serving as demonstrations of the rather startling skills and abilities that committed musicians in our time can in the right kind of settings lend for a good cause, in the process take something like a qualitative leap forward in performance practice.

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Review by JJ June 11, 2011 (3 of 8 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:    
The famous Hagen Quartet (Lukas Hagen, Rainer Schmidt, Veronika Hagen, Clemens Hagen) invites us here to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their formation with a program of the Quartet Op.59/2 “Razumowsky” by Beethoven, the Quartet K.428 by Mozart, the Five Pieces Op.5 and the Bagatelles Op.9 by Webern. Music escapes from the bows with lucidity, and our enthusiasm grows in light of the history of this exceptional quartet. For, as the liner notes point out: “Working with musical personalities such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and György Kurtag has been as important for the Hagen Quarten as working with musicians such as Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, Krystian Zimerman, Heinrich Schiff or Jörg Widmann. The concert repertory and the discography of the quartet are composed of intelligent and charming combinations of work which, from Haydn to Kurtag, cover all the music for the string quartet.” Here then for the first time in multicanal and in stereo is the Hagen Quartet, for an essential homage paid to these exceptional musicians.

Jean-Jacques Millo
Translation Lawrence Schulman

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Works: 4  

Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2 "Razumovsky"
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 16 in E flat major, K. 428/421b
Anton Webern - Five Movements, Op. 5
Anton Webern - Six Bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9