Music & Arts CD-1253 (8 CDs) The London String Quartet : 1917-1951 Recordings. Includes 5 previously unissued complete concerts from the Library of Congress and newly restored rare 78 rpm recordings. September 2011 * : Previously unissued. LC : Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Sound restorations : Lani Spahr. Notes : Tully Potter. |
CD 1 - 61:23 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - String Quartet No. 9 in C major, Op. 59 No. 3 'Rasumovsky No. 3' John Pennington (violin), Laurent Halleux (violin), William Primrose (viola), Warwick Evans (cello)*. Johannes Brahms (1833-97) - String
Quartet No. 3 in B flat major, Op. 67 CD 2 - 66:27 Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) - String
Quartet, Op. 76 No. 2 in D minor 'Fifths' Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) - String
Quartet, Op. 76 No. 3 in C major 'Emperor' CD 3 - 75:25 Ernst Toch (1887-1964) - String
Quartet No. 12, Op. 70 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - String
Quartet No. 11 in F minor Op. 95 'Serioso' CD 4 – 66:52 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - String
Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132 CD 5 – 68:40 Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) - Pieces
(5) for string quartet Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) - String
Quartet in F major CD 6 – 73:00 John Blackwood McEwen (1868-1948) - String
Quartet No. 6 in A major 'Biscay' Johannes Brahms (1833-97) - String
Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51 No. 2 CD 7 – 63:03
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) - On
Wenlock Edge CD 8 – 67:55 Edward William Elgar (1857-1934) - String
Quartet in E minor, Op. 83 (abridged) Frank Bridge (1879-1941) - Three
Idylls Frank Bridge (1879-1941) - An Irish
Melody, "Londonderry Air" Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) -
String Quartet in A minor: Finale Stephen Collins Foster (1826-64) - Melodies [8] |
The year 2010 marked a century since the London String Quartet, known
affectionately as the LSQ, gave its first concerts. Britain’s leading chamber
ensemble for two decades, it was equally well known in America, where it
competed on equal terms with the Flonzaley Quartet: in 1925 leading American
critic Olin Downes hailed ‘the finest quartet playing that has been heard this
Winter in New York’. The LSQ gave many premières, made myriad records and at
different times included Albert Sammons and William Primrose. That almost no
trace of the group remained in the catalogues in its centenary year was sad but
easily explicable. Much of its recorded output was produced by the acoustic
process; and often the music was abridged because the Columbia Graphophone
Company was not fully committed to chamber music until around 1923. One can
still enjoy those old discs, which represent the best of the neat, unfussy
British string style; and some of them are reproduced here. But the five
programmes performed at the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1951, issued here
for the first time, inevitably give a better idea of the LSQ’s capabilities: for
one thing, they are played straight through, before a sympathetic audience,
rather than being done in a sterile studio by the old stop-start 78rpm method.
1st Violin:
2nd Violin:
Viola:
Cello: