Luogo e data di registrazione		Théatre Vevey, Vevey (Svizzera) - 18-31 agosto 1967 (Op. 51 No. 1) La Salle des Remparts, La Tour-de-Peilz (Svizzera) - 13-24 giugno 1970 (Op. 51 No. 2)
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Vittorio Negri | Tony Buczynski
	Edizione LP		Philips | 6570 919 | 1 LP
	Prima Edizione CD		Vedi link alla prima edizione in long playing.
	Note		La collana "Musica da Camera" della Philips riedita negli anni '80 alcune registrazioni del Quartetto Italiano.

Brahms left only three string quartets and delayed publication of the first until 1873 when he was 40 years old. But if he was afraid of his works being compared with Beethoven's, he was not afraid of the shadow of Beethoven itself - the Op. 51 quartets constantly acknowledge Beethoven openly and frankly. Nor was he afraid of tackling string-quartet writing. We know from his correspondence that he wrote about 20 other string quartets before the C minor of Op. 51 - none of which passed his rigorous self-set standards, though many must surely have been masterpieces. The Op. 51 quartets, therefore, are not the first he wrote but rather the first he chose to let posterity hear. Not that he was ever completely satisfied with them even after many years of shaping and polishing. When he began work on the C minor quartet is not certain, but it may have been as early as 1865 when the violinist Joseph Joachim wrote to him to ask if a C minor quartet with wich he was occupied was not yet finished for performance. Brahm's publisher Simrock was also anxious for some quartets and in June 1869 Brahms wrote to him from Lichtenthal near Baden-Baden begging his patience and mentioning a possible rehersal. The same month Clara Schumann recorded in her diary that she had heard two "lovely" quartet movements by Brahms, one of which was not quite to her taste. Whether Brahms was influenced more by what he heard in rehearsal or by Clara's opinion is not clear, but the Op. 51 quartets in any event were held back for further amendment. Not until 1873 and two further try-outs did the composer put the two works resignedly in Simrock's hands. Both were dedicated to his friend Dr. Theodor Billroth, a Viennese surgeon and talented string-player. Yet it seems odd that the dedication, of one at least, should not have been to his closer friend Joachim, particularly when the second quartet employs thematically the musical mottoes the two used at the height of their friendship - Joachim's F A E representing "Frei Aber Einsam" (Free but lonely) and Brahm's F A F, "Frei Aber Froh" (Free but happy). This minor mystery is deepened by the fact that Brahms wrote to Billroth revealing the intention to dedicate one of the Op. 51 quartets to him. Brahm's biographer Kalbeck formed the not unlikely theory that the composer withheld the Joachim dedication in a fit of ill-temper. The opening movements of both quartets are characteristically built from the smallest of thematic bricks. In the C minor's sombre, almost tragic first movement significant motifs are combined to form short subject groups. What might have been a similar tragic atmosphere in the A minor's first movement is dispelled by a more traditionally lyrical second subject. But the immense power remains, lent by the terseness of the main theme which opens with Joachim's F A E motto (eventually fused with Brahm's F A F in the coda.) Both slow movements, though rich and imaginative, are based on simple ABA structures. The melancholic "Romanze" of No. 1 has two distinct themes, the second inescapably recalling the Cavatina of Beethoven's Op. 130. The scherzos, both in minor keys, do little to provide light relief and they serve to lend impetus to the short finales, which sum up their respective works both emotionally and thematically. A. David Hogarth

Illustration: Johann Carl Arnold (1829-1916) "Quartettabend bei Bettina von Arnim", um 1855, detail (Freies Deutsches Hochstift, Frankfurt am Main)