Quatuor Diotima add their voices to the already immense Beethoven late quartet discography with an approach anchored in precision: they recorded from the newly published critical edition of the scores by Jonathan Del Mar (released by Bärenreiter). Pizzicato reports that this edition revealed an interpretation shaped by “unprecedented precision” in articulation, dynamics, accidentals, and even entire measures—convincing the quartet to focus on how open questions and paradoxes in the score are resolved.
While the full method may not be for every listener, the results are clear: Pizzicato describes performances that leave “no stone unturned,” seizing “every expressive possibility” and weaving them into accounts that sound “modern and demanding,” yet always spring from something natural in the music itself.
Read the full review here.
Beethoven: The Late String Quartets is out now on PENTATONE.
