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...sampler of classical LPs to keep the stereo glowing...
Mozart: The Six Viola Quintets (Juilliard Quartet with John Graham, second viola, Columbia; 3 LPs). The best complete set of these masterpieces since the recording by the Budapest Quartet with Walter Trampler. The playing is supple and urgent, fully equal to the symphonic sweep of the great C major quintet as well as the tragic stoicism of the G minor. What it sometimes misses is the mystery of Mozart's luminous, godlike simplicity. But then that is the quality in Mozart that Artur Schnabel described as "too easy for children and too difficult for artists...
Beethoven: The Five Middle Quartets (Cleveland Quartet, RCA; 4 LPs). As if to mark its artistic coming of age, this ten-year-old group is moving impressively through that phonographic rite of passage for string quartets, a Beethoven cycle. The dramatic works in this installment burst the molds of classicism and prepare the way for the somber spirituality of the last quartets. The performances-strong and probing-capture the paradox of the quartet form: a cohesive ensemble but seemingly spontaneous individual voices...
Beethoven, Sonatas for Violin and Piano (London, 5 LPs, 1978). One plus one equals one as Virtuosos Itzhak Perlman and Vladimir Ashkenazy play with seamless unity...
Berg, Lulu (Deutsche Grammophon, 4 LPs, 1979). With the completion of the third act by Friedrich Cerha, a masterpiece of 20th century opera stands fully revealed at last...