Cuarteto Casals JOSEPH HAYDN String Quartets Op. 33

STRING QUARTETS Op. 33

Cuarteto Casals APOTHEOSIS

APOTHEOSIS

Cuarteto Casals REVELATIONS

After 'Inventions', 'Revelations' is the second volume in a complete set of the Beethoven quartets that breaks new ground: it aims to regroup the works according to their position within the three broad creative divisions of the composer's life - the formative years, the 'heroic' period and the late period. This programme assembles the 'median quartets', in other words the works that prolonged and consolidated the stylistic innovations outlined at the beginning of each of these creative periods. 'It'll be fascinating to hear the next instalment' (Gramophone).

Cuarteto Casals INVENTIONS

Launching its complete cycle of Beethoven's string quartets, the Cuarteto Casals presents this first installment featuring initial examples of the genre from each of the three key periods in the composer's career: his formative years, the socalled 'heroic' middle period, and that of his artisticmaturity. The ingenious juxstaposition shows how much his superhuman quest for perfection enriched a compositional language of breathtaking originality in tandem with a depth of expression without precedent in this genre, of which Beethoven is the uncontested master.

Cuarteto Casals METAMORPHOSIS Bartók - Kurtág - Ligeti

It is sometimes said that the essence of ‘classical' music lies in the principle of variation; but when the idea of incessant transformation of the musical material irrigates scores like these quartets by three eminent Hungarian composers of the 20th century, the resulting sonic impressions are very different. The governing principle here is metamorphosis, an idea as dear to Bartók as it was to the compatriots who succeeded him.

 “The Bartok Fourth Quartet receives a relatively 'classical', even cool account - not as relentlessly hard-driven as some other recent accounts of the piece but in itself perfectly valid (and certainly not as exhausting). On the technical elevel, it is practically perfect.” International Record Review, October 2010

“Bartók's piece has perhaps the most unsettling opening of any string quartet – a discomfiting premonition of the technical challenges ahead, from the furtive prestissimo to the biting pizzicatos of the allegretto, all navigated with sensitivity to the changing moodscape by the Quarteto Casals” The Independent, 30th July 2010 

“Cuarteto Casals hold their big-boned, heart-on-sleeve sound in reserve for much of this disc, unleashing it only in the brutal blur of the second movement of Métamorphoses nocturnes.” The Independent on Sunday, 3rd October 2010

Cuarteto Casals WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART String Quartets dedicated to Joseph Haydn

No one could accuse the Cuarteto Casals of being reticent in these three of the six quartets that Mozart dedicated to Haydn, the works in G: K387, E flat K428 and C K465. They launch into every movement with tremendous relish, on such a tide of rich, deep string tone that they could be playing Brahms or Dvořák, and it comes with equally full-blooded, expressive inflections. It is very involving to begin with, as such musical generosity draws you into the performance – welcomes you almost. But after a while it all seems a bit too obvious and generalised. The habit of shaping every phrase the same way, so that each of them is turned into a crescendo, which can be heard right from the outset in the opening movement of K387, starts to be fussy, while the scoops and touches of portamento seem to belong to a different style of performance altogether. The musicality and warmth of the playing are never in doubt; it's just that the Casals' approach perhaps doesn't suit Mozart as well as it might later composers.(Andrew Clements)

Cuarteto Casals JOSEPH HAYDN Die sieben letzten Worte

Haydn wrote his 'Seven Last Words' in 1786/87 for Good Friday devotions in Cádiz. Although the custom in Cádiz was to perform an oratorio, Haydn's brief was in fact to write seven movements for orchestra alone, each creating a mood inspired by one of the sayings attributed to the dying Christ. He chose to frame them with a further slow movement called ‘Introduzione’ and a concluding Presto entitled ‘Il Terremoto’, intended to depict the earthquake that occurred after Christ’s death (Matthew 27:51).

This purely instrumental ‘oratorio’ consisting of seven contemplative slow movements was by no means an easy task; but the outcome was a work of sublime nobility, which in Haydn’s own transcription for string quartet has enjoyed unfailing popularity ever since.

It is entirely appropriate that this recording of Haydn’s 'Seven Last Words of Christ' should be performed by the Cuarteto Casals, for the work represents one of the few surviving traces of the composer’s flourishing relationship with Spain, where his music seems quickly to have become as popular as it was in France and Britain.