Description
This is the most comprehensive collection ever recorded: The Leipzig Quartet have achieved legendary status with all Franz Schubert's string quartets and fragments, string trios and the famous Trout Quintet with Christian Zacharias.
"A landmark undertaking - the first truly complete, integral recording of Schubert's surviving music for string quartet. The recorded sound is consistently outstanding, the performances are magnificent, and the music offers joy after joy...For musicological and artistic reasons, too, this series is of tremendous value." -Fanfare
Numerous fragments and early works provide deep insights into Schubert's compositional development throughout his lifetime. Precisely this juxtaposition with great works like the Trout, Rosamunde, and Death and the Maiden make this 10-CD collector's edition so appealing.
The performances have been highly praised internationally: "This Trout must surely be one of the very best versions of this much-recorded work...The sound is wonderfully natural, and so is the performance." - Gramophone
"An authorative, expressive and excellently-played body of interpretations of the Schubert string quartet repertoire. It can safely be considered the leading complete cycle." - classical.net
"Spacious, fine-toned performances... The way they explore the full emotional colour of all the unexpected twists of harmony is especially striking... The recording is excellent, clear and full sounding." - Gramophone
"These are the real thing. Throughout the set the musical values are of the highest order, the interpretations racing and intense, and the recordings themselves ideal in clarity, richness of sound, and naturalness of acoustics." - Strings Magazine
"The tempi are ideal and the playing excellent" - BBC Music Magazine
"A comprehensive overview of Schubert's work for strings (including the fragments) in a uniform quality that can hardly be surpassed." - Crescendo
