The "Stradivari Series" appearing on the Harmonia Mundi label features instruments from the Museum of Music housed at the new Philharmonie de Paris. That did not oblige the producers to make the actual recordings at the Philharmonie, which is too large a space for Beethoven's chamber music and forces the engineers to mike the players too closely to create a sense of intimacy. However, the marquee attraction is the instruments, and they're quite interesting, with notes going into a good deal of detail about their history. ...
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The "Stradivari Series" appearing on the Harmonia Mundi label features instruments from the Museum of Music housed at the new Philharmonie de Paris. That did not oblige the producers to make the actual recordings at the Philharmonie, which is too large a space for Beethoven's chamber music and forces the engineers to mike the players too closely to create a sense of intimacy. However, the marquee attraction is the instruments, and they're quite interesting, with notes going into a good deal of detail about their history. Pidoux's Pietro Guarneri cello, made in Venice in 1734, sings with the newly operatic quality of late Baroque instrumental music, and it's nicely suited to the two early Beethoven cello sonatas here, key jumps forward in which Beethoven grasped the structure of the biggest Mozart sonata forms. Especially novel, though, is the piano, an 1855 product of the Königsberg maker Gebauhr. It has a smooth lower register and a sparkling top, pointing directly toward the modern German pianos of...
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