Brahms - String Quartet 2 [Takacs String Quartet]Here's another lovely box set of the Brahms String Quartets, with the Piano Quintet, over previous months i have extolled some of the other works on this disc [22nd August 2010] and [14th July 2010], i am no expert on these String Quartets, in fact they're fairly new to me as works that i'm starting to truly appreciate, it's a wonderful discovery to finally 'get' what Brahms is trying to say!.
It's good to have all three of the String Quartets of Brahms in one handy box, the Takacs string quartet has really come of age recently, they are now very highly regarded by critics, and again i must make mention of the booklet cover [not the original that came with this set], a very well proportioned shot, with an unusual camera angle from below, with lovely horizontal and vertical lines, browns and blues!, lovely.
The first movement really caught my heart, it's in A Minor of course, and it's quite a sad movement, the opening is a sad refrain [0:00-0:32], fairly quiet, the Quartet nicely swirls out of this, later there's a nice little jaunty tune [1:10+], where the cello uses excellent use of some nice deep pizzicato bass to keep things bumbling along, and this section comes to an end with an endearing conclusion [2:22+], this whole section is then repeated again, the return of the start [3:23+] is a wonderful moment, it cements and solidifies the original opening when you hear it all over again just over three minutes later, and then towards the end this triptych appears yet again [8:07+], this time the endearing end to the section becomes the start of the coda, and the thing winds down to its ultimate conclusion, a sad but satisfying piece of music.
Here's the Jerusalem Quartet playing the first movement on YouTube.
