Quartetto di Cremona

Quartetto di Cremona

Complete Beethoven String Quartets Vol 2

(Audite)

When I reviewed the first volume of Beethoven's string quartets in a new recording on the German Audite label earlier this year, I was really excited by what I heard from the Quartetto di Cremona - a group that was at the time new to me, though they have been around since 2000. Their vivid sound and attacking style gave the music a real edge. Moreover, something in that mix reminded me of the long-gone Quartetto Italiano, one of the greatest quartets of all time. Volume Two in the series includes a fantastic performance of the second opus 59 Rasumovsky Quartet, an account which seems to recognise the E minor tonality of the piece as emblematic of the essential restlessness at the heart of the music, while a superb performance of the wondrous opus 127 Quartet is launched with majestic authority and a blindingly lucid understanding of the tensions that lie within the music: again, there's some edgy stuff in here. It's early days in the series, but I'm already tempted to pronounce the Cremona Quartet natural successors to the Quartetto Italiano.

Michael Tumelty