Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Hagen Quartett :: Beethoven String Quartets Op. 127 & 132

Why are these quartets so underplayed?

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 04/17/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It's hard to make Muzak out of late Beethoven, but the Hagens seem determined to smooth out all of the composer's most jagged, daring and risky ideas. Every movement here is underplayed, which came as quite a surprise to me. I had associated the Hagen Qt. with edgy, self-conscious, often aggressive interpretations. Here they merrily zip along the surface -- listen to the brief Alla marcia fourth movement of Op. 132 -- in a way that even the fleet, modernist Emerson Qt. doesn't.



Perhaps the intent was to make Beethoven sound more "classical," a category his late works hardly fit into. One expects maximum intensity in the Adagio of Op. 132, but to the Hagens Beethoven's great hymn of praise is a pastoral stroll. Everyone's entitled to their opinion about Beethoven style nowadays, but to my ears these readings come dangerously close to trivialization."