Books, Arts & Manners: Again the ‘Middle Quartets’

So much has been written by so many about the Beethoven quartets that it should be the better part of criticism simply to say: So-and-so has recorded quartets such-and-such with x success. But all criticism, or reviewing, is really an exercise with the cud. Yet from it, no pun intended, we may strike a chord. Even in iteration there is some virtue.

The string quartet as such offers much to the critic. Symphonies are like an oil painting, the string quartet like an etching. Both are or were based on the sonata form. But in the former the composer has at his disposal the full orchestral palette. He can dazzle or obscure with the entire range of sonorities and dynamics and instrumental contrasts—and he can seduce with the whole orchestra’s color and texture.

RT

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Ralph de Toledano

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So much has been written by so many about the Beethoven quartets that it should be the better part of criticism simply to say: So-and-so has recorded quartets such-and-such with x success. But all criticism, or reviewing, is really an exercise with the cud. Yet from it, no pun intended, we may strike a chord. Even in iteration there is some virtue.

The string quartet as such offers much to the critic. Symphonies are like an oil painting, the string quartet like an etching. Both are or were based on the sonata form. But in the former the composer has at his disposal the full orchestral palette. He can dazzle or obscure with the entire range of sonorities and dynamics and instrumental contrasts—and he can seduce with the whole orchestra’s color and texture.