Leipzigers visit France Moderne...
Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 10/03/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
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Ravel's Belle Époque Quartet (F-major, 1903) is a favourite piece in the genre: quintessential Art Nouveau yet with a prescient ambience of forward-looking Modernism.
This razor's-edge aesthetic balance requires delicate handling to fully realize the perfumed efflorescence available therein.
The Leipziger SQ--(while technically excellent)--takes a brisk and brusque deconstructive application which seems blind to the work's fragrant beauty.
(The Emerson is preferred here Debussy, Ravel: Streichquartette.
Or, perhaps surprizingly [?], the Ad Libitum on Naxos which provides the most richly realized reading available Ravel / Fauré: String Quartets.)
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Debussy: String Quartet; Fauré: String Quartet; Caplet: Conte Fantastique
Caplet: Conte fantastique; Setuor; Prières
Franck, Chausson: String Quartets
String Quartets & Piano Quartet
Quatuor Op.16-Sonate Pour Violoncelle Op.2
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