This Debut CD confirms the impression I’d formed from broadcasts of a highly talented, exceptionally well-integrated ensemble. Their excellent balance is highlighted by crystal-clear recording. The opening of the Debussy, brisk and forceful yet with plenty of variety and meticulous in observing the composer’s directions, immediately inspires confidence. After a while, though, I started to wonder whether the playing was a bit too careful and controlled; the Vertavo Quartet, not quite as slick and with more soft-edged recorded sound, give a much more spontaneous effect, with delightful and very idiomatic touches of rubato. Similarly in the Ravel, the Belcea performance brings out all the subtleties of texture and timbre, the fascinating cross-rhythms, the sweetly nostalgic emotional tone.

It tends to be Russian performers who capture the dark, emotional undercurrents of Shostakovich's music, but few chamber groups have ever done it as well as the Belcea Quartet, a London-based group of central and eastern European players. Neither the Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57, nor the String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73, is a commonly played work, but taken together, in the Belcea's more-than-capable hands, they have a powerful impact.

Brahms was one of the first composers to write for pairs of violins, violas and cellos, blazing the trail for Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Korngold and Schoenberg. His two sextets are early works, composed in 1860 and 1865 respectively. Brahms wrote to his publisher that the second was in ‘the same joyful vein’ as the first. Yet the composer’s life was sombre at this time: his mother died suddenly and his romantic relationship with the soprano Agathe von Siebold ended in failure; indeed, the first movement of the sextet opens with a viola motif on the notes A-G-A-D- B-E (AGADHE in German notation)

This luxury Belcea Quartet Box brings a new high-definition audiovisual reference recording of Beethoven's Complete String Quartets! The ensemble embarked on the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets, playing the whole program within twelve days, and recorded at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2012, with each concert featuring one work from the early, middle and late quartets, including perhaps the most exciting of all works by Beethoven: the Opus 133, the 'Große Fuge' which he wrote as the finale of the quartet Opus 130.

This luxury Belcea Quartet Box brings a new high-definition audiovisual reference recording of Beethoven's Complete String Quartets! The ensemble embarked on the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets, playing the whole program within twelve days, and recorded at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2012, with each concert featuring one work from the early, middle and late quartets, including perhaps the most exciting of all works by Beethoven: the Opus 133, the 'Große Fuge' which he wrote as the finale of the quartet Opus 130.

This luxury Belcea Quartet Box brings a new high-definition audiovisual reference recording of Beethoven's Complete String Quartets! The ensemble embarked on the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets, playing the whole program within twelve days, and recorded at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2012, with each concert featuring one work from the early, middle and late quartets, including perhaps the most exciting of all works by Beethoven: the Opus 133, the 'Große Fuge' which he wrote as the finale of the quartet Opus 130.

This luxury Belcea Quartet Box brings a new high-definition audiovisual reference recording of Beethoven's Complete String Quartets! The ensemble embarked on the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets, playing the whole program within twelve days, and recorded at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2012, with each concert featuring one work from the early, middle and late quartets, including perhaps the most exciting of all works by Beethoven: the Opus 133, the 'Große Fuge' which he wrote as the finale of the quartet Opus 130.