(The Lener Quartet - In a word, prolific)
Tonight's Edition of the Gramophone comes to a 1928 recording made for Columbia by the celebrated Lener Quartet of the Mozart String Quartet in B-Flat K.458 (The Hunt).
An extremely prolific bunch, the Lener's recorded the complete String Quartets of Beethoven at a time when no one else had done the complete series. Some quartet's, particularly the earlier recordings done in the acoustic method were later re-recorded in the new electrical process around 1928.
The Lener Quartet were very popular with audiences throughout Europe and the U.S., although by today's standards they may sound a little rough in a lot of places. It's interesting to compare this recording to say, a more recent one just to hear how performance practices have changed over the decades.
In the area of music, particularly classical and Jazz, there is no concrete method of playing a piece of music. It's all in the interpretation once you get the notes down.
And The Lener Quartet illustrate that perfectly.
