> Beethoven: Complete String Quartets. Artemis Quartet. Virgin 7 CDs.
Included, of course, are well-known works such as three Op.59 Razumovsky quartets, the Harp Op.74, and Quartetto Serioso Op.95. The standard of excellent performance is supreme in all quartets, grouped chronologically.
The Artemis Quartet, Berlin-based, has been playing Beethoven throughout the world over the past several years, saying: "His music speaks to every era." They play with zest and vivid colours, preferring the freshest, dynamic, approach to mere reverence.
Top marks: great music well played, beautifully recorded.
> Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 19 and 23. Helene Grimaud (piano). Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon CD.
Two years earlier she played Bach with these fine musicians and then returned to Munich to lead from piano in these F major K.459 and A major K.488 concertos. The results were exciting, inspiring her to release the live recordings.
The Adagio in K.488 is taken slower than usual because Grimaud regards it as possibly the most sublime movement he ever wrote for the keyboard and so expresses its depths of emotions. Soprano Mojca Erdmann joins the pianist for a bonus aria, from a revision of the opera Ideomeneo.
Highlights: sensitivity and skills in cadenzas.
