"When these quartets were recorded, in the 1990's and early 2000's, the Kodaly Quartet ("KQ") had been playing together for more than a quarter century. It shows. What is evident on these recordings is the perfect cohesion of these highly talented musicians; they clearly have an intimate knowledge of the score of each quartet and thoroughly enjoy playing together. The KQ's performance is fresh, truly conveys their love for this music, and fully brings to life the range of emotions contained in this musical microcosm - playfulness, elegance, sunny joy, and gentle reverie - with every movement of these quartets having a quality of refinement and graciousness that allows the listener to savor every note.
The allegro movements on these CDs have a wonderful rhythmic vitality.
While listening to them, one can imagine elegantly dressed men and women in the 18th century, with the women in long, flowing silk dresses, moving across the dance floor to the sounds of this wonderful music. Although this chamber music was originally composed for small private gatherings, the fast movements have a lively rhythm that evokes the image of dancing couples.
The slow movements are played with a beautiful tenderness that invites the listener to float upwards with closed eyes into a serene musical heaven, floating in the clouds like an albatross with its wings outspread, being lifted by air currents as it slowly glides through an azure sky on a warm summer day.
These digital recordings have an excellent crystal clear sound quality, capturing the KQ's precision and their sensitivity to every nuance of every note. The sound engineering is truly first-rate, giving a feeling of immediacy and physical presence to the instruments. It is only one step away from having the musicians actually performing in front of you, in your own living room.
I am absolutely delighted with this series of the complete Haydn string quartets by the KQ. As it turns out, every CD in the series has been a delight, including the ones with "spurious arrangements" and quartets that may very well not have been composed by Haydn at all, but by Romanus Hoffstetter (1742 - 1815).
Even the early string quartets are more than mere historical footnotes. They are also beautiful music, irrespective of who composed them, Haydn or Hoffstetter. They are delightful and very worthy compositions in their own right. As stated by Allan Badley in the booklet notes to one of the CD's of the earliest quartets: "There is much to admire in the Op. 3 Quartets, whoever the composer may have been. They are elegant, neatly composed works with lively outer movements, gentle, graceful slow movements, and the kind of lilting, intoxicating minuets that are an integral part of Austrian music of the period." The fact that these string quartets are less musically complex than Haydn's later masterpieces, such as the Opus 71, "Apponyi" quartets, does not detract from their beauty.
I would gladly have paid twice as much for this set of CDs and still felt it was an excellent value. The CD booklet notes are well-written, with historical information, musical analysis, and information on the Kodaly Quartet. Very highly recommended.
"
A Tour de Force.
Dermot Elworthy | Florida , United States | 08/11/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Perhaps the cost of purchasing the boxed collection (as opposed to acquiring individual CDs) partly is responsible for there being only one other review of this set. Nevertheless, I find this odd. I bought the complete edition in 2003 and this was my introduction to the Kodaly Quartet; they so impressed me with their technique and musicianship that subsequently I have acquired many more recordings made by them.
This Haydn set is an absolute joy from every standpoint; very well thought-out and played, wonderfully cohesive with a homogeneity underpinning the whole set and, in common with so many of the Naxos productions from Eastern Europe, superbly recorded. The coupling of the works on each disc is well balanced.
Joseph Haydn wrote 83 string quartets. Given that he "invented" the musical form - although Luigi Boccherini (who wrote 91) also must be accorded some credit in this regard - these quartets are astonishing in their development and maturity. Elements of their construction can be found in earlier Beethoven and Schubert quartets; Haydn truly was an innovator but, inevitably, some of his achievements have been obscured under the enormous shadow which Beethoven cast in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries and which exerts such profound influence to this day. These quartets have been a victim of this and deserve to be very much more widely appreciated.
This is a wonderful collection which, despite always being close to the top of my "playlist" and since there are so many of them which I play in strict rotation, never palls.
Regardless of whether you purchase the complete set or individual CDs, the Haydn-Kodaly-Naxos combination in my judgment is unbeatable. I fail to understand how anyone could not be enchanted by this really first class production.
Go on, spoil yourself and buy it - you won't regret it!
"
But Why Not Spread the Wealth Around?
swimjay | Berkeley, CA | 06/22/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The Kodaly are marvelous, but there's relatively little financial incentive to buy this box set, as the per CD price is very little different from buying individual disks--in some cases, more than if one buys from "New or Used". No matter how good any one group is, there are insights to be gained, and pleasure to be had, from listening to other interpretations--the Tatrai, the Lindsays, Quatuor Mosaiques, the New Esterhazy, to name a few. Unless one is a completist, rather than have all 80+ quartets by one group, it might be more useful to have just 20 or 30 (still a lot), possibly with a few versions, by different performers, of ones favorite quartets."
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1