ベートーヴェン: 初期弦楽四重奏曲集

カリドルSQのベートーヴェン第3弾!

BBCミュージック・マガジンによって「非常にコレクション価値が高い」と評されたカリドル弦楽四重奏団によるベートーヴェンの弦楽四重奏曲集の第3弾は、初期作品を収めた3枚組。これまでのリリースは、BBCミュージック・マガジン賞・室内楽部門の受賞や、グラモフォン誌の「Recording of the Month」など非常に高い評価を得ています。偉大な伝統と現代の研究や解釈を融合させ、普遍的なメッセージ性を追求した意欲的な演奏にご注目ください。

ニューヨークで活動するカリドル弦楽四重奏団は、2016年に10万ドルという超高額賞金(室内楽では世界最高額)で知られるM-Prize国際室内楽コンクールで優勝し、国際的なキャリアをスタート。ボルレッティ・ブイトーニ財団賞を獲得した最初の北米のアンサンブルとなり、BBCラジオ3のニュー・ジェネレーション・アーティストにも選ばれるなど世界から注目を浴び、2018年には優れた若手演奏家に贈られるエイヴリー・フィッシャー・キャリア・グラントも受賞しています。
東京エムプラス

There is no shortage on the market of fine Beethoven quartet performances, but young groups keep coming to these works and making them their own. That is certainly true of the Calidore Quartet, which here concludes its cycle with Beethovens first six quartets, generally accounted the "early" quartets. They are impressive performances that show a set of players familiar with each others thinking and able to respond to each other in an agile way. Sample right in the beginning in the first movement of the String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18, No. 1, where the opening material is taken at a brisk pace but is quite subtly shaped. The opening of the String Quartet in D major, Op. 18, No. 3, is beautifully delicate. The Calidore is adept at adding a bit of rhythmic instability to the music without letting it fly out of control; there are any number of examples, but the first and third movements of the String Quartet No. 6 in B flat major, Op. 18, No. 6, are especially relevant. The Calidore Quartets notes stress the ways the early quartets adumbrate the qualities of the later ones, and certainly, in some ways, this is true, but in the quartet that seems most to approach the drama of middle-period Beethoven, the String Quartet No. 4 in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4, the group is remarkably restrained. In general, this is not "Romantic" early Beethoven, nor Haydn-Mozart early Beethoven, but Beethoven that takes each quartet as an individual entity, and that is all to the good. The quartets were recorded over several sessions at the Gore Recital Hall at the University of Delaware, where the Calidore Quartet has served a residency. Normally, the site of a university recital hall as the venue would set off engineering alarm bells, but this one, under the famed producer Judith Sherman, is different; Signum Classics sound is transparent, warm, and detailed. This strong Beethoven release made classical best-seller lists in early 2025. ~ James Manheim