New Arts International

- Second volume of Narratio Quartet complete survey of Beethoven's string quartets
- This 2CD set gathers together the three complex Quartets op. 59 and the more accessible Quartet op.74
- Early Music Review about CC 72969 (Early String Quartets): The quartet’s name refers to the art of rhetoric, the projection of which is tellingly apparent in these marvellously communicative performances.

Beethoven’s string quartets were written in an era when chamber music was shifting from the salons of the nobility into the concert hall, and when chamber music ensembles were slowly but surely metamorphosing from being a pursuit for a mix of outstanding amateurs and professionals into a discipline for professionally trained musicians. In that sense the “Rasumowsky” quartets represent a turning point in the string quartet tradition. Count Rasumowsky, one of Beethoven’s principal patrons in the first decade of the nineteenth century and the Russian ambassador in Vienna, was also an excellent amateur violinist, playing second violin in the string quartet which he financed and which was led by the renowned Ignaz Schuppanzigh. The three quartets, Opus 59, which were dedicated to him, prompted him to give up his place in the quartet. He provided the members of this quartet with a fixed appointment in 1808, which even included a pension for life. Initially, the three Opus 59 quartets met with some resistance from the Viennese audiences. After the two opus numbers 18 and 59, both consisting of a group of quartets, opus 74 is a single work, generally considered as one of the most readily accessible.

Middle String Quartets