Beethoven - String Quartet 5 [Quatuor Turner]I actually prefer Beethoven's early String Quartet [1-6], than his later Quartets [12-16], i feel Beethoven got too inner reflective for his own good, these Quartets are simple tunes, and Beethoven seems to have arranged them from worst to best, with each subsequent Quartet saying and delivering something more, plus it's good to have a full set of these Quartets on two discs.
Quatuor Turner are strangely a conglomerate of four Countries, and on the Harmonia Mundi label as 'Nouveaux Interpretes' [New Interpreters], a series devoted to emerging Artists and Groups, they made these recordings in 1994, these 2 discs come in a double 'fatbox' case, the front picture [by Eric Larrayadieu] is a close up group shot of the Quartet, almost all of their faces being slightly cut from the shot, but a nice huddled pic.
I came to know this String Quartet by listening to the Borodin String Quartet play it on a cassette, i really marvelled at the first movement, full of fun and vigour, on this listen i also found the last two movements great too, the third movement variations are a delight, and the last movement is opening up for me, but it's still the opening movement i liked the best,
Here's the first movement being played on YouTube, with Jascha Heifetz on first violin.
