Kurzbeschreibung:

In the early 1960s, four young musicians who had been playing chamber music at Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro School and Festival in Vermont were encouraged to form a string quartet. In July 1964, the Guarneri Quartet gave its first concert and less than a year later made its first recordings under contract to RCA Victor. For the next 45 years, with only one change of personnel, the Guarneris performed all over the world and amassed a large, wide-ranging, prize-winning discography. Sony Classical now presents, for the first time in a single collection, all the recordings made by the Guarneri Quartet for RCA between 1965 and 2005.
When the announcement came of its retirement at the end of the 2008–09 season, the eminent British critic Rob Cowan wrote a perceptive, affectionate tribute to the Guarneri Quartet in Gramophone, comparing it to the Juilliard Quartet, the other superb ensemble that had dominated the American quartet catalogue for so many years. Using their respective Bartók recordings as an example, he contrasted the “cut-glass precision” of the Juilliard’s early-60s set to the Guarneri’s “volatile, free-spirited, generously expressive and tonally rich” performing style in its RCA cycle from the mid-70s.
That characterization of the Guarneri Quartet’s playing runs through virtually all the reviews garnered in their long recording career, a story that began with the 1966 release of two of Mozart’s late “Prussian” Quartets and an album coupling Dvořák and Smetana. HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “not since the Juilliard String Quartet set the New York music world on its collective ear some 25 years ago has a new chamber group created such a furor as the Guarneri Quartet on the occasion of its New York début in February, 1965. This pair of discs demonstrates eloquently what all the shouting was about, for these players – Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer – blend precision with flexibility of phrasing and rhythm in a way not often encountered in contemporary American string groups. Here, indeed, is the influence of the seed bed from which the quartet stems – the Marlboro of Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals … To the Smetana [‘From My Life’] the Guarneri Quartet brings blazing intensity and fierce rhythmic verve, while the wonderful slow movement of the Dvořák [Op. 105] comes forth from the stereo speakers with an almost orchestral lushness, yet with inner voices flawlessly balanced.”

FLAC, Lossless (tracks) | Classical | 12,1 Gb

Tracklist:

CD 1
Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 in E minor 'From My Life'
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 14 in A flat major, Op. 105 (B193)

CD 2
Mozart: String Quartet No. 22 in B flat major, K589 'Prussian No. 2'
Mozart: String Quartet No. 23 in F Major, K590 'Prussian No. 3'

CD 3
Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70
Boris Kroyt (viola), Mischa Schneider (cello)

CD 4
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13
Grieg: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 27

CD 5
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34
Arthur Rubinstein (piano)

CD 6
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59 No. 1 'Rasumovsky No. 1'

CD 7
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2 'Rasumovsky No. 2'
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 9 in C major, Op. 59 No. 3 'Rasumovsky No. 3'

CD 8
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 10 in E flat major, Op. 74 'Harp'
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 11 in F minor Op. 95 'Serioso'

CD 9
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60
Arthur Rubinstein (piano)

CD 10
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 26
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44
Arthur Rubinstein (piano)

CD 11
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130
Beethoven: Grosse Fuge in B flat major, Op. 133

CD 12
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major, Op. 127

CD 13
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135

CD 14
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18 No. 1
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 18 No. 2
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 18 No. 3

CD 15
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 4 in C minor, Op. 18 No. 4
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 5 in A major, Op. 18 No. 5
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 6 in B flat major, Op. 18 No. 6

CD 16
Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81
Arthur Rubinstein (piano)

CD 17
Schubert: String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D804 'Rosamunde'
Schubert: String Quartet No. 12 in C minor (fragment), D703 ‘Quartettsatz'

CD 18
Dvořák: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E flat, Op. 87
Arthur Rubinstein (piano)

CD 19
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 11 in C major, Op. 61 (B121)
Dvořák: Terzetto in C major for two Violins and Viola, Op. 74

CD 20
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
Ravel: String Quartet in F major

CD 21
Mozart: String Quartet No. 14 in G major, K387 'Spring'
Mozart: String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K421

CD 22
Mozart: String Quartet No. 16 in E flat, K428
Mozart: String Quartet No. 17 in B flat major, K458 'The Hunt'

CD 23
Fauré: Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor Op. 15
Fauré: String Quartet in E minor, Op. 121
Arthur Rubinstein (piano)

CD 24
Mozart: String Quartet No. 18 in A Major, K464 'Drum'
Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K465 'Dissonance'

CD 25
Schubert: String Quintet in C major, D956
Leonard Rose (cello)

CD 26
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 'American'
Dvořák: String Quintet No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 97 'American'
Walter Trampler (viola)

CD 27
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D810 'Death and the Maiden'
Wolf, H: Italian Serenade in G major

CD 28
Bartók: String Quartet No. 1, Sz 40 (Op. 7)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, Sz 67 (Op. 17)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 3, Sz 85

CD 29
Bartók: String Quartet No. 4, Sz 91
Bartók: String Quartet No. 5, Sz 102
Bartók: String Quartet No. 6, Sz 114

CD 30
Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K478
Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E flat major, K493
Arthur Rubinstein (piano)

CD 31
Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 77 No. 1 in G major
Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 77 No. 2 in F major

CD 32
Schubert: String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D887

CD 33
Beethoven: String Quintet in C major, Op. 29
Mendelssohn: String Quintet No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 87
Pinchas Zukerman (viola)

CD 34
Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 20 No. 4 in D major 'Sun'
Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 74 No. 3 in G minor 'The Rider'

CD 35
Brahms: String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51 No. 1
Brahms: String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51 No. 2

CD 36
Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B flat major, Op. 67
Schumann: String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 41 No. 1

CD 37
Schumann: String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 41 No. 2
Schumann: String Quartet No. 3 in A major, Op. 41 No. 3

CD 38
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 13 in G major, Op. 106 (B192)

CD 39
Borodin: String Quartet No. 2 in D major
Dohnányi: String Quartet No. 2 in D flat major, Op. 15

CD 40
Mozart: String Quartet No. 20 in D major, K499 'Hoffmeister'
Mozart: String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K575 'Prussian No. 1'

CD 41
Brahms: String Quintet No. 1 in F major, Op. 88
Brahms: String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111
Pinchas Zukerman (viola)

CD 42
Schubert: Piano Quintet in A major, D667 'The Trout'
Mozart: Serenade No. 13 in G major, K525 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik'
Emanuel Ax (piano), Julius Levine (double bass)

CD 43
Verdi: String Quartet in E minor
Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11

CD 44
Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 51 'Seven Last Words'

CD 45
Mozart: String Quintet No. 1 in B flat major, K174
Mozart: String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K516
Ida Kavafian (viola), Steven Tenenbom (viola)

CD 46
Mozart: String Quintet No. 2 in C minor, K406
Mozart: String Quintet No. 5 in D major, K593
Kim Kashkashian (viola), Steven Tenenbom (viola)

CD 47
Mozart: String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K515
Mozart: String Quintet No. 6 in E flat major, K614
Ida Kavafian (viola), Kim Kashkashian (viola)

CD 48
Dohnányi: String Quartet No. 2 in D flat major, Op. 15
Kodály: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10
Dohnányi: String Quartet No. 3 in A minor, Op. 33

CD 49
Mendelssohn: Octet in E flat major, Op. 20
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 44 No. 1
Jaime Laredo (violin), Alexander Schneider (violin), Samuel Rhodes (viola), Leslie Pamas (cello)