Search - Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Borodin Quartet :: Debussy & Ravel: String Quartets

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE FRENCH

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 02/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Borodins are a byword for quality in everything they do, and they have a habit of getting good recordings in addition. It is all here again, just like in the recordings of Shostakovich and of the eponymous Borodin that I already know from them. The playing has the familiar confidence, strength of characterisation, depth and quality of tone, unfailing stylistic grasp and unerring surefootedness that I am coming to know. The recording is first-rate again too, with depth and resonance at no cost to clarity. To hear just how good it can be, try the pizzicato chords at the start of the second movement of Debussy's quartet.



Tempi should give nobody any problem. They are very close indeed to those taken by the Parrenin quartet in a recording I have known and loved down the years but which seems not to be in the current catalogues, the most significant divergence being in the slow movement of the Ravel, taken much more slowly by the Borodins, and with great solemnity and effectiveness.



Both of these quartets are comparatively early works by their respective authors, but both, (Ravel's particularly), are accomplished and already characteristic. Accustomed as I am to the Parrenins I would not say that I find these accounts the last word in some elusive 'Frenchness', but that is not something that exercises me in the slightest. Composers and compositions of this stature transcend nationality, and this disc can be recommended without hesitation to lovers of the works and newcomers alike."