Emilie Mayer's Quartet in E minor - finally a professional recording

[Double-A]

This was posted to youtube 3 moths ago.  I just found it by happenstance.  It is a live recording of a concert* by a quartet called Carpe Diem String Quartet.  The acoustic quality of the recording is quite good.

More about Mayer's e-minor quartet can be found on this (somewhat meandering) thread. 

I don't actually agree with many of their choices.  There is overall too much rubato**, the adagio is too slow and the melody is over-prioritized over the "accompaniment" which obscures for example the almost persistent triplets in the scherzo.  But they play well and the piece comes across as impressive nonetheless.

* unfortunately sparsely attended as far as visible in the video...

** in the adagio the reprise is led by the viola and for once the player played 16 bars at constant tempo.  What a relief!

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks very much. It'll be good to hear another of Mayer's quartets - the G minor has already appeared on a Capriccio CD, of course.

[matesic]

I also tend to think of the work as more forthright than in the Carpe Diem's interpretation (so far as I've heard it). Maybe they're taking more time on account of the over-resonant acoustic? The sparsity of the audience is very like we get for chamber music concerts in our local churches and town hall.

[Double-A]

I don't really think it is the hall.  I have the impression that it was laboriously figured out and rehearsed.  Too much focus on details or "fussing and futzing with details" as Hurwitz might put it  Some of the details are really convincing, e.g. the transition from the trio back to the main section of the scherzo (for which I haven't a better solution).  There is just much too much of it.