Beethoven - String Quartet 7 [Lindsay String Quartet]
Along with Schubert's String Quartet 14, this is my favourite Quartet, the Lindsay String Quartet are a world class ensemble, and this recording is highly praised everywhere, the Quartet have now disbanded in 2005, they made this recording in the mid eighties i believe, they have now recorded another Beethoven cycle nearly twenty years later.
This Quartet was revolutionary when Beethoven first unleashed it to the world, people couldn't understand such forward looking music, a lot of people point to Beethoven's late Quartets as his most inner spiritual statements, but i prefer his mid to early Quartets [5 to 8].
I love the opening of this Quartet, it has an irresistible forward momentum, it starts off as if in mid sentence, coming out of nowhere, the Cello of Bernard Gregor-Smith plays that wonderful tune, and the first Violin of Peter Cropper takes up the tune fifteen seconds later, what really gets me is how this tune keeps coming back again and again, at 3:00 and again at 7:26, each time it initially sounds like it's going to be an exposition repeat, but Beethoven makes exciting variations, finally at the end, this tune comes back in power, by the whole Quartet playing forte at 10:09, a magical moment indeed.
Here's the Belcea String Quartet playing the first movement on YouTube.
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