String Quartets,Volume 4 (String Quartet, Op. 127 in E flat major & String Quartet, Op. 132 in A minor)

MUSICWEB RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR (2005)

"This Volume 4 in the complete set of Beethoven Quartets performed by the current Borodin Quartet was a revelation to me. Here is an entirely new and brilliantly revelatory look - dramatic, humanistic, lyrical, ingratiating - at these familiar works in excellent new sound. Late Volume 5 kept up the high standard and we can hope when this set is complete it will be one of the half dozen absolutely must-have versions of these cornerstones of the quartet literature. Even if some other volumes in the series disappoint, buy volumes 4 and 5 for performances you will refer to again and again."
(MusicWeb)

"We are given the feeling of a voyage of discovery, and of the players own enjoyment of the music."
(Gramophone)

Beethoven turned to the challenging genre of the string quartet when he was twenty-seven, and created the last quartet of his astonishing cycle some twenty-eight years later, shortly before his death. The Borodin Quartet's record-breaking career spans twice that length of time, and yet it has only recently realised what Berlinsky - the one remaining original member of the Quartet, and its benign patriarch - calls 'the great dream of my life: to play all of Beethoven's quartets from first to last'. Berlinsky achieved his lifetime's ambition this year, the Borodin Quartet's sixtieth anniversary.

Fourth in the acclaimed series of Beethoven String Quartets.