Chiaroscuro Quartet – Beethoven: String Quartets Op. 59 Nos. 1-2

The Chiaroscuro Quartet is now offering us the fourth instalment of their ongoing complete recording of Beethoven’s string quartets. This latest release spotlights the first two of the three opus 59 quartets known as the ‘Razumovsky’, named for their patron, the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Count Andreas Razumovsky, who maintained a house quartet in his palace.Beethoven was particularly proud of these new quartets, despite the initial bewilderment they provoked among audiences, critics and even performers. Famously, when a violinist complained of their difficulty, Beethoven retorted: ‘Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age.” The first, in F Major, was almost certainly the longest string quartet composed up to that point and it’s unprecedented weight and density of argument earn it the moniker the Eroica among Beethoven’s quartets. The second, in E minor, is often described as a ‘close cousin’ of the ‘Appassionata’ Sonata, in that both works -c