Petersen Quartett - Boccherini: String Quartets (2008)

First off let me say that Luigi Boccherini was probably the most important (yet nowadays overlooked) contributor to the string quartet genre if sheer number and overall quality are weighed as equals. He wrote around 90 quartets and composed the very first string quartet for a permanent ensemble in the history of music (see my review of his opus 2).

This disc begins with Boccherini's last finished quartet which will absolutely blow you away given its context in his life. By the time he wrote it (probably in 1804) he had witnessed the death of his second wife and two of his daughters and was living in poverty, on the verge of death from tuberculosis (May 25, 1805). Ah, but he must have had a very strong character as this quartet is the opposite of dismal. Its opening Allegro is one of my favorite movements in all of Boccherini (and in all of music for that matter). It is admirably strong, warm, celebratory and very grand. In short, it is quite impossible not to love! This was written by someone who knows how to write a quartet and the Petersen quartet does it justice. After listening to it in its entirety you won't believe it was written amidst such a great tragedy but will think it was spawned by a warm fireside in the kings palace.

The next quartet (opus 15) is a very well done work both by composer and performer! It shares the warmth of the disc's first and takes its themes all over an intriguing landscape where they are exposed to a sensible balance in the writing that is cousin to Mozart.

The next quartet (opus 24) will quickly dispel anyone of the ignorant notion that Boccherini was a superficial composer (if somehow the preceding two haven't already done that). It is full of passion and just enough "strum und drang" to be a dark, windy and rainy piece in its opening Allegro, with sun peeking through the clouds in its enobeling Adagio and all safety reached in its celebratory Minuetto. Truth be told, I prefer Europa Galante's version, but please understand that the Petersen Quartet does the work full justice here.

The last quartet is one of Boccherini's most popular if number of times recorded = popularity. It is, in a word, superb. In several words it is deeply charming, very well balanced, expressively written, utterly entertaining, completely catchy - in all it is everything that makes a great string quartet! Three of its movements are celebratory while its Grave is so very desolately cold and sadly forlorn.

There are no complaints about this disc, but only a very warm and completely heartfelt encouragement to give it a listen - you will be very rewarded!