CUARTETO CASALS WINS THE GERMAN MUSIC CRITICS PRIZE
15.08.14
German Record Critics Prize
Joseph Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross Hob.XX:02
Cuarteto Casals. Harmonia Mundi HMC 902162
There are already approximately forty different recordings of this work in the catalogue. It is rare however that the rhetorical possibilities of the music are so convincingly demonstrated as here from Cuarteto Casals. The structure of these "Seven Last Words" framed by the intense Introduzione and energetic Terremoto, is formulated through an extraordinarily concentrated, inward-looking, unsentimental and sorrowful affect. Each individual voice, while clearly articulated in all its detail through the use of what is in reality an elevated sound, still subordinates itself to the total architecture of the quartet. A masterful achievement.
