String Quartet opus 135 (with Walton - Sonata for Strings)

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"The Amsterdam Sinfonietta tear into the beginning of Walton's Sonata for Strings with unstoppable vigour, and that pulse of excitement beats throughout a terrific performance. But ferocity is tempered by great delicacy and sweetness, a reminder that this is a sonata (reworked from a string quartet) rather than a full-blown orchestral suite.

Beethoven's final string quartet makes a perfect companion piece. Like the Walton, it derives from a work composed for smaller forces, but the Amsterdam band emulate Leonard Bernstein, who recorded it with a large group of Vienna Philharmonic strings. The overall effect is of miniaturism exploded but not overblown, drama but not vulgarity."
Recording of the Month (Gramophone March 2006)

Why Beethoven and Walton? Sir William Walton's Sonata for Strings is a piece that the Amsterdam Sinfonietta has performed with great success both at home and abroad. For this reason we felt that a recording of this work was an obvious choice. It is a powerful composition which gives a string orchestra the opportunity to display all of its discipline, virtuosity, and tone-color. We chose Beethoven's string quartet op. 135 as a companion piece for this recording because of our admiration for the greatness of this final string quartet. The only other recording of this work to date is the Vienna Philharmonic's legendary recording of op. 135 in an arrangement for string orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In this earlier recording, the work is performed with a very large group of strings, and Beethoven's composition is realized on a symphonic scale. One important characteristic of the Amsterdam Sinfonietta is that the orchestra is conceived in terms of a string quintet, i.e. a small- scale setting. The orchestra has deliberately remained small in size for the exact purpose of preserving the intimate character of works such as those by Walton or Beethoven. In this way we are able to perform with a maximum of flexibility and articulation. During the recording sessions, attention was devoted not only to the dynamic levels in the score but an effort was also made to give different colors to the various motives. The Amsterdam Sinfonietta strives for the greatest possible expression in this way. Our choice for the combination of these two works is due more to the differences in their musical language than to their similarities