About the set of Fesca string quartets

[eschiss1]

already mentioned about a year ago, and according to cpo already out as of August in Europe, (upcoming in the USA according to Amazon.com), I admit to some curiosity about this having heard one of his quartets over on IMSLP. Any opinions of this cpo set?

[jdperdrix]

You can hear samples (+ downloading and streaming) on qobuz:
http://www.qobuz.com/album/fesca-complete-string-quartets-vol-1-diogenes-quartet/0761203748228

[matesic]

Nice to hear all the samples, although perhaps that doesn't show the pieces in the best possible light, giving some impression of same-iness. The very thoughtful (and busy!) reviewer on amazon.co.uk makes a special point of Fesca's mastery of form, which of course doesn't come across from excerpts. It's hard to disagree with him, that in this corner of the repertoire at least Fesca may deserve to be ranked alongside Onslow and Spohr. Terrific playing from the Diogenes too. According to Cobbett there should be 11 or 12 quartets yet to come.

[eschiss1]

Well, Richault (the Parisian publisher) published ca.1830? (see here for instance) a (not necessarily complete?) collection of parts for 5 Fesca string quintets and of 19 string quartets including these string quartets of his --

opp. 1 (quartets no. 1-3), 2 (quartets no. 4-6), 3 (quartets no. 7-9), 4, 7 (quartets 11-12), 12, 14, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40

of which I see opp. 1, 3, 12, 34 (8 quartets) are on the vol.1 cpo set, leaving perhaps opp. 2 nos. 1-3, op.4, op.7 nos. 1 and 2, op.14, opp.36-40 ... (sees op.7, then doesn't see it, then sees it again. though those last four were published, I think???, primarily as flute and strings quartets- in which form I think maybe they've already been recorded??- but with string quartet alternatives that might be recorded too?)

[eschiss1]

"Das Diogenes Quartett hat 8 von den insgesamt 16 Streichquartetten von dem Geiger und Komponisten Friedrich Ernst Fesca (1789-1826) aufgenommen. Vol. 2 wird in Kürze vom Amaryllis Quartett erscheinen."  from the Diogenes Quartet website.

So that means _8_ to go - I'm guessing that means that the ones that were already recorded (I think) for flute and strings will not be re-recorded as string quartets (which brings my count to 7, which means there's one I don't know about.)