The New Zealand String Quartet has a distinguished track record on disc, balancing homegrown with international repertoire. Its latest Naxos release offers the first two string quartets of Brahms, ...

From the quick vibrato of the opening of the First Quartet to the viola’s pure tone that leads to the second subject just 10 bars later, the Artemis give us a Brahms of and for our time, inevitably ...

Brahms was apparently so petrified of comparisons with Beethoven's achievements in the form that he destroyed the 20 or so string quartets he composed as a youth before finally, having turned 40, ...

The Takács Quartet also offer a rival recording of the C minor String Quartet (their Hyperion remake, which follows almost two decades after their first recording for Decca, 9/90 R). While both the ...

This disc is dedicated to the memory of one of the people playing on it: viola player Friedemann Weigle, who died in July aged 53. He joined the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet in 2007. Brahms gives ...

The Brodsky Quartet started young and, with a couple of changes of leader during their lifetime, celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2012. Great musical ambassadors, they excel in a wide range of ...

Brahms claimed to have written and destroyed 20 string quartets before he managed to complete any he wanted to keep. The two quartets of his Op. 51, which he wrote in 1873, ended a quarter century ...