Catalogue # 4805619
All that was issued of a projected Fitzwilliam Quartet cycle on Decca was two late quartets – Opp. 130 and 132 – as well as the Grosse Fuge. Issued over two full-price discs and unavailable for more than two decades, they are now coupled as a 2CD Eloquence reissue. Some of Beethoven’s most visionary achievements, the recordings were highly regarded upon their first (and only appearance) on CD. The Grosse Fuge is placed before the finale of the B flat major Quartet, ‘clearly intended to be a spectacular apotheosis’, as Alan George argues in his notes. Listeners can program the CD with either the Grosse Fuge as the finale or the sixth movement conventionally used as its finale.
The lengthy annotations include an introductory note by the Fitzwilliam Quartet’s viola player Alan George, reminiscing about the recordings. The original CD notes are updated and revised and an additional note on the Grosse Fuge is provided by the Quartet’s current leader, Lucy Russell. As well there is a biography of the Fitzwilliam Quartet and a note on their Decca recording team.
Collectors will be interested to learn that the Fitzwilliams’s recording of the Op. 130 and Grosse Fuge was the last recording ever to be made by Decca in one of its most prestigious recording venues, Kingsway Hall.
Beethoven:
String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130
Grosse Fuge in B flat major, Op. 133
String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132
Fitzwilliam String Quartet
CD - 2 discs
