Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Tokyo String Quartet :: String Quartets (Complete)

Late, middle, early

Musicus | Oslo, Norway | 06/06/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Sorry to differ, fungfucius, but my feeling is the opposite. To me the late quartets are the best by Tokyo, the middle are very good and the op. 18 are not good enough.

I find that the op. 18 quartets by Tokyo feel too big to be really engaging - that was their latest effort and I think they didn't find these early quartets interesting enough.

I recommend the middle however, and especially the late.

The Tokyo interpretation of the late quartets I will label religious.

The middle are very nicely balanced and more evenly played than by the more exciting Takacs, especially op. 74 "The Harp" and op. 59/3 stand out. I like very much op. 59/1 too, and even more op. 95 (which is included by the late in the Takacs sets). Nothing compares to Tokyo's op. 95. For the Takacs, however, there is a lot more excitement.

The late quartets? Almost similar quality or better than the Takacs, I think. Here the Tokyo has an intimate, almost mysterious feeling, whereas the Takacs has an icy, slightly more dramatic feeling (perhaps, might partly be due to sound quality, which is extremely high definition by the Takacs recordings). For the op. 18 (early quartets) go for the Takacs if you like some sting, or the Alban Berg Quartet.

Some consider the Tokyo quartet "a machine", when it comes to middle & late Beethoven, I feel that is far from the truth, and especially so for their religious late Beethoven."

Early, Middle, Late quartets.

fungfucius | Lagrangeville, NY United States | 07/16/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Sorry about this! Only a very quick comment.The Tokyo quartet is very good (almost wonderful) in the Early quartets; good in the Middle quartets; but disappointing in the Late quartets. They seem to not be able to interpret some of the depth and sufferings from quartet #12 onward.This group is super in all technical aspects, possessing an especially beautiful tone. Perhaps that's why they do so well in the Opus 18 works and kind of slightly not up to the task in the late ones!?"

OUTSTANDING!!!!!

Francisco Yanez Calvino | Santiago de Compostela, GALIZA, Spain. | 03/09/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have listened lot of versions of this quartets (Italiano, Melos, Alban Berg, La Salle...) but no one with the technical precision and german sound of this Tokyo Quartet's playing.I love specially the last quartets, where Tokyo gives the best I know. Don't have any doubt about buying one of the top moments in the history of performed music; if you find them. It's terrible what RCA is doing with most of Tokyo Quartet's recordings."