Early String Quartets
Producers note:
The collaboration with the Narratio Quartet in this monumental undertaking is a true joy. Johannes Leertouwer and Viola de Hoog are old and dear musician friends from over 30 years back, when we already made many recordings together. Albums with their Schönbrunn Ensemble and Anima Eterna Brugge, with all the Mozart piano concerto's, his Flute Quartet and Schubert symphonies are amongst those.
We lost site a bit over the years, but re-uniting with them is a wonderful and inspiring experience. There was always talk of working together again, but now in the autumn of our lives we enjoy it to the full with the most amazing music ever written.
It is a challenge, the period instruments, the unbelievable complex repertoire and the amount of quartets is simply staggering. It asks all of our skill and talents to make it work optimally. The results are however as good as it gets and I am very proud of it and thank the Narratio Quartet for offering me their trust and friendship to artistically produce, engineer and release these treasures on The Spirit of Turtle.
2024 Bert van der Wolf-Oude Avenhuis
(Low Resolution excerpts)
Viola de Hoog: I have often wondered which of the “great spirits” might provide a new impulse and a different direction for what we call classical music in this early part of the twenty-first century. Narratio Quartet have been immersed in all of Beethoven’s string quartets for over fifteen years now. We experience time and again how Beethoven explored and then overcame the limits of the Classical style and the instrumental difficulties that were prevalent at the start of the nineteenth century. What we hear has been enriched by the passing of two centuries and the gaining of wider experience. Progress indeed, might be your first thought, but perhaps we have also lost something along the way? The ability to feel how groundbreaking and visionary this music was in those days. My colleagues and I feel that using instruments that are comparable to those of the time has helped us enormously in getting somewhat closer to the surprise, the bewilderment and the rapture that the musicians in Schuppanzigh’s quartet must have felt when they first came face to face with the newest and most innovative chamber music of the day.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Six Quatuors pour deux Violons, Alto, et Violoncelle composées et
dédiés A Son Altesse Monseigneur le Prince Regnant de Lobkowitz &
par Louis van Beethoven
CD 1
String Quartet Op. 18, No. 3 in D major
[1] I. Allegro 8:14
[2] II. Andante con moto 7:47
[3] III. Allegro 3:10
[4] IV. Presto 7:35
String Quartet Op. 18, No. 1 in F major
[5] I. Allegro con brio 10:29
[6] II. Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato 8:59
[7] III. Scherzo Allegro molto, Trio 3:46
[8] IV. Allegro 7:20
Total time 57:24
CD 2
String Quartet Op. 18, No. 2 in G major
[1] I. Allegro 8:18
[2] II. Adagio cantabile-Allegro-Tempo I 5:47
[3] III. Scherzo Allegro, Trio 4:56
[4] IV. Allegro molto, quasi Presto 5:53
String Quartet Op. 18, No. 5 in A major
[5] I. Allegro 7:50
[6] II. Menuetto, Trio 5:20
[7] III. Andante cantabile [con variazioni] 11:05
[8] IV. Allegro 7:33
Total time 56:48
CD 3
String Quartet Op. 18, No. 4 in C minor
[1] I. Allegro ma non tanto 9:36
[2] II. Andante scherzoso quasi Allegretto 7:41
[3] III. Menuetto Allegro, Trio 3:46
[4] IV. Allegretto-Prestissimo 4:54
String Quartet Op. 18, No. 6 in B-flat major
[5] I. Allegro con brio 7:03
[6] II. Adagio ma non troppo 6:32
[7] III. Scherzo Allegro, Trio 3:47
[8] La Malinconia, Questo pezzo si deve trattare colla più gran delicatezza
Adagio-Allegretto quasi Allegro 7:58
Total time 51:23
The order in which the quartets are presented on these three disks represents the order in
which Beethoven composed the pieces, not the order in which they were first published.
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