Fitzwilliam String Quartet

Fitzwilliam String Quartet – Schubert: Late String Quartets. G Major & C Minor ‘Quartettsatz’ (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:16 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records

Having celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2019, it is perhaps remarkable that the Fitzwilliam String Quartet has not already recorded this towering pinnacle of Western music repertoire: Schubert’s String Quartet in G major, D. 887. This revelatory recording on period instruments proves it was well worth the wait! The work’s idiomatic grandeur and overall complexity coupled with its ever-changing tonalities and otherworldly atmosphere call for the sort of stamina that is the privilege of a limited few.

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Fitzwilliam String Quartet – Bruckner: Quintet & Quartet (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:35 minutes | 1,46 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Linn Records

This is the first recording to use gut strings (a special set from Dan Larsen in Minnesota was obtained specially for this recording) and original instruments at the correct pitch for the time. Having first tackled the Bruckner Quintet nearly forty years ago , the Fitzwilliam’s starting point was achieving the famous ‘Bruckner Sound’ as well as considering tempo, bow strokes, use of vibrato and portamento in the performance. With many great moments (such as the Adagio) the Quintet is guaranteed an exalted place in the hierarchy of chamber masterworks.

Upon hearing the performance The Bruckner Journal wrote: ‘It was a revelation to hear Bruckner’s quintet played on instruments with this gut string set-up appropriate to the time of its composition, and to hear it performed with a flexible lyricism that has become a rare thing in Bruckner performance.’
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