Schubert: String Quartets Nos. 10 & 15

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

Among modern performances I have heard none that surpasses this for obsessiveness. Even so, the Cuarteto Casals manage not to fall into the trap of making this an aural ordeal for the listener...but... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2012, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Jul 2012
Catalogue No: HMC902121
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 71 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

November 2012

Disc of the month

Schubert: String Quartet No. 10 in E flat major, D87

Work length24:33

$4.40

$5.50

$6.40

Cuarteto Casals

I. Allegro moderato

Track length9:22

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

II. Scherzo. Prestissimo

Track length2:12

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

III. Adagio

Track length5:22

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

IV. Allegro

Track length7:37

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Schubert: String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D887

Work length47:13

Album only

Cuarteto Casals

I. Allegro molto moderato

Track length19:31

Album only

II. Andante un poco moto

Track length10:33

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace

Track length7:02

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

IV. Allegro assai

Track length10:07

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

About
Reviews
Explore

About

For their first incursion into the works of Schubert on disc, the members of the Cuarteto Casals invite us to discover two quartets situated at the two extremes of the composer's life. Wrongly dated much later on its publication in 1830, the Quartet in E flat is in fact the work of a 16-year-old musician who had just entered teacher training college . . . Whereas its companion here was to be Schubert's very last quartet. Only 13 years separate the two pieces! But in the meantime a whole world had invaded his musical consciousness, and here the naivety of G major throws a deceptive veil over inner upheavals.

Reviews

November 2012

Among modern performances I have heard none that surpasses this for obsessiveness. Even so, the Cuarteto Casals manage not to fall into the trap of making this an aural ordeal for the listener...but here there is unnerving exhilaration of riding in a fast vehicle that seems thrillingly unable to stop.

Awards Issue 2012

these musicians shape the lines to reflect both poetry and youthful spirit. The Casals rightly scale down their their steely resolve that paid dividends in D887 but prefer detachment to ardour, particularly in the slow movement.

September 2012

The Cuarteto Casals makes a clear distinction between the comparatively placid, sometimes lively progress of the early quartet and tough, symphonic nature of the G major work. The playing of the latter is strong, uncompromising, excellently structured and considered

22nd July 2012

Their account of the great G major is something out of the ordinary — I don’t recall a performance of this work in which Schubert’s existential angst is so relentlessly projected...The tragedy and drama of this music have rarely been so harrowingly delivered on disc.

22nd July 2012

The excellent Spanish ensemble Cuarteto Casals...bring supple radiance and flair to these two works which span Schubert's brief career...Does music come any better?

27th July 2012

You’ll find plenty of Latin spirit in the Cuarteto Casals’s CD of two contrasting Schubert string quartets...Not all of the Casals’s current members are Spanish...But that never lessens the ensemble’s Latin passion and spunky attack. Their playing is a joy.

Schubert: String Quartets Nos. 10 & 15

Downloads

Contents

Download queue