Roth
Quartet
Sir Donald Tovey
Recorded in 1934 & 1935 & released
in 1936 as Columbia ROX 136-145
Released in 2005 as Divine Art CD 27804
Download ID: 286729
Duration
76'15"
COMES WITH ORIGINAL SLEEVENOTES & PRINTABLE COVERS
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sample :
Bach's
Art of Fugue was a towering achievement for its composer -
its sheer technical brilliance and perfection of form and structure cannot
be called into question. And yet it is something of an enigma - was it
ever even meant to be played, or was it an academic exercise in 'cerebral
music'?
There
are no indications on the score which indicate instrumentation, tempo,
or any general performance indications; the music gives no concession
to 'tunefulness' and requires a degree of patience and repeated listening;
there is no thematic development between movements to suggest each being
a part of a larger whole - and so on.
There
is also confusion as to when it was written, and why the final - and by
far longest - part remained incomplete. And yet it is indeed one of the
great works of musical art, presented here in an arrangement for string
quartet by Roy Harris and Mary Norton and performed by the Roth Quartet.
The disc concludes with a conjectural completion of the final Contrapunctus
written and played on the piano by Sir Donald Tovey.
From
Paul Shoemaker's review at Musicweb International:
This
performance for string quartet achieves the very even, singing,
“nostalgic” sound that many 1930s musicians affected
when playing old music, as though such modern concerns as drama,
texture and dynamics were simply too vulgar for dear old classics.
There are some vibrato and portamento as well. The string sound
on this very listenable restoration is rich in tone, remarkably
well balanced, and free of distracting noise. Most of the fugues
could fit on a single 78 rpm side, but two of them required a
side-break. The restorer tells how the performers would slow down
as they came near the end of the side; but he was able cleverly
to restore the tempo digitally so that the side breaks are inaudible
and the music flows convincingly through them.
A
unique historical document, lovingly and beautifully restored...
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