Beethoven - String Quartet 8 [Quartetto Italiano]My favourite Razumovsky Quartet is definitely the first, and the other two are well in the shadows, but now, this Quartet is emerging from those shadows, i'm really learning to love it.
Another String Quartet from this 3 disc boxset, i played a couple of these Quartets over the last two months [1 July 2010 & 12 June 2010], and this has been another enlightening experience, a lovely cover pic too, by Arje Plas.
I so much enjoyed the second movement on this playing, there's a simple yearning to this Adagio, so songful and heartfelt, i find that this movements structure is so free flowing, it weaves in and out of melodies and ideas, and it's hard to pinpoint where something starts or ends, also great melodic ideas just creep up on you, gradually you realise Beethoven has sneaked in a great idea without you realising where or when it came in or from, the true sign of a genius.
It starts off with a such a gentle unassuming tune [0:00-1:33], a lovely theme which introduces the nature of the whole movement, but it deepens and becomes more intense [1:39+], and there's this truly gorgeous little note at [1:52], the violin sings high and sweetly in the treble like a songbird [2:37+], and there's this little endearing tune [3:36+], it breaks your heart, then somewhere around [7:45+] the music becomes ethereal, it's as if bar lines come to an end and the music goes off the page for the next few minutes, again the music intensifies at [8:25+], the music is so unassuming, there's a little phrase at [8:58-9:07] that just 'gets' me, i can't really put my finger on it, it sounds like something i remember from Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene part 5, about [1:01+] in, how things hang/hide in my memory, wow! i'm more in love with this movement now i've reviewed it, and been able to dissect its qualities, the key word here is 'unassuming'.
Here's the second movement being played on YouTube.
