NRR Project: The Budapest Quartet records Beethoven's Complete String Quartets (1940-1950)

 

NRR Project: The String Quartets

Composed by Ludwig von Beethoven

Performed by the Budapest String Quartet

Recorded 1940-1950

420 min.

This epic set of recordings is definitive. Composed by Beethoven between 1800 and 1826, they represent some of the most adventurous excursions in classical music.

I must point you to two sources for this story. The first is the excellent explanatory essay by David W. Barber at the National RecordingRegistry Archive site. He includes much information about Beethoven and the compositions there. Then check out the Wikipedia page concerning the Quartet.

This second source outlines the group’s history (1917-1967) as a tempestuous, ever-changing lineup of players, each with their own peculiar strengths, weaknesses, and temperaments. It was a soap opera. That they were able to execute the Quartets over the course of a tumultuous decade (1940-1950), much less than with a remarkable technical proficiency that allowed them to express the depth and complexity of the work, would seem to be remote.

Importantly, they imposed a rigorous set of rules upon themselves, pledging to share equally in their collective earnings, to accept no work outside the group, and to make their living from the work of the Quartet. Through constant touring, eating cheaply, lodging cheaply, they made a living. The entity known the Budapest Quartet was elastic and resilient. It accommodated change while it maintained the highest of musical standards.

Listening to the recordings is an out-of-body experience. In many ways, what Beethoven is doing is beyond my ability to understand. I hear genius, but I’m damned if I know how to define it. If it is any consolation, the critics and musicians of Beethoven’s time were similarly stumped and had little use for them, especially his Late Quartets – (Opus 127-135). These compositions are now deemed to be his greatest, simply transporting, confounding, exquisitely performed by the Quartet.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Alexander Scourby reads the King James Bible (1940-1944).