Beethoven

String Quartets, Op. 18/2,

Op. 59/2-3, Op. 74 & Op. 132 Cuarteto Casals

Harmonia Mundi HMM 902403.05 161:25 mins (3 discs)

Recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets usually come in chronological order, with a box each for the early, middle and late works, but the

Cuarteto Casals has opted instead to have representative pieces from all three periods in each of its albums. The approach makes good sense, and allows us to appreciate the unprecedented range of Beethoven’s development. It’s good to find the players observing the second-half repeat in the E minor Razumovsky Quartet’s opening movement. It makes for a long piece, so it’s almost never done, but this and the Ghost Piano Trio Op. 70

No. 1 are Beethoven’s only largescale middle period works to call for both halves of the first movement to be repeated, and in each case the second repeat throws greater weight onto the coda when it arrives.

In the finale of the early quartet Op. 18 No. 2, where the music keeps slipping into a new key when you least expect it to, the Cuarteto Casals is appropriately witty; and for the slow movement of the Harp Quartet Op. 74 the players manage to avoid any hint of sentimentality without sacrificing anything of the music’s expressive depth. Their tempo for the famous ‘Holy Song of Thanksgiving’ from the late Quartet Op. 132 is again sufficiently flowing for the chorale melody to come across coherently; and if the finale is slightly on the cool side (this is one of Beethoven’s rare appassionato markings), the steady tempo allows us to hear just how radical Beethoven’s part-writing is. Altogether, a stimulating set of performances. Misha Donat

PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★