Beethoven • Schubert
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C minor, Op. 131; Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet
Sacconi Quartet
Orchid Classics ORC100265 80:07 mins
The Sacconis have been together now for 21 years, making them one of the UK’s longest-running quartets. To celebrate the milestone they have finally allowed themselves to set down their long-developed performances of works that represent the summit of the artform: Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and Beethoven’s almost contemporaneous C minor Quartet, Op. 131.
The players have a notable consistency of tone, perhaps partly thanks to the fact that the three higher instruments are all by the influential 20th-century Italian luthier from which the quartet takes its name; in any case, it takes its lead from the sweetness of Ben Hancox’s first violin. The performances are closely recorded, making for a feeling of directness and intimacy rather than spaciousness, and a focus on nuanced choices of tone colour – such as the breath-like sound at the beginning of the Schubert’s slow movement, almost evoking an accordion. Elsewhere this work sounds tautly wound, the playing crisp and punchy, the inner rhythms measured and precise, each voice clear – it’s an interpretation of calculated drive rather than abandon.
The Beethoven initially unfolds with a sense of inevitability, and little ruffles the surface in the first movement, but in the Variations that all changes, and in the fifth of the seven movements the players make much of the exaggerated pizzicatos and the abrasive effects at the end. A dramatic finale wraps up another detailed – and ultimately very satisfying –performance. Erica Jeal