Review by Beagle September 15, 2005 (11 of 11 found this review helpful)
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I confess: I am a quartet addict, and like other addicts I sometimes imbibe matter not quite to my personal taste, Tchaikovsky f'rinstance. No, please put that blunt object back down; it is not my intent to draw the righteous ire of Tchaikovsky's army of admirers upon my head. I merely wish to point out that romanticism declines with age, and I am within touching distance of 60. I was about to say that "I can't imagine any piece more Romantic...", but that title adheres to Piotr's own Op. 11 Andante cantabile, or maybe one of Arthur Foote's chamber works. But this disc is Romantic melody-making par excellence, by the Russian who said 'I am only happy when I am weeping'.
So here I am, like a Rubbie drinking shoe-polish, amazed at how good I feel. I am drinking in the sound: that produced by the Parkanyí and that digitised in DSD by Praga. I have the St Lawrence Qtt CD spinning in synch, and when I switch between sources, I get the feeling that the Laurentians are playing on combs wrapped in wax paper. The music-making of the two quartets is in many senses comparable, but I have never really liked the St Lawrence disc, and I am enthralled with the Parkanyís here. Relative musicality is difficult to judge within such different sonics. Both discs have a healthy dose of resonant depth, but the SACD's well-rounded tones are floating in transparent clarity, like goldfish in a crystal-clear pool.
The one complaint is the old complaint: ~54 minutes of music, i.e. one quartet and a quartet-movement. For comparison, Praga put ~71 on the Dvorak Quartet disc and ~79 on the Beethoven Quartets vol.1 disc. It would be reasonable to have included the Op. 11, instead of the Quartettsatz. --But maybe (hope, hope), this is only 'volume one' and more of this delicious vintage is being bottled!
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