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In its mid-'70s recordings of Beethoven's late string quartets, the LaSalle Quartet often comes close to greatness, but only once does it achieve greatness. One cannot argue with the tone or intonation or the ensemble: all are as near to flawless as any quartet has ever gotten. One cannot argue with the group's intention, intensity, or interpretations: all are as close to ideal as it is possible to imagine. But Beethoven's late quartets are beyond the demands of technique or the requirements of interpretations: they are prayers turned into music, meditations by one of the most profound composers who ever lived, contemplations written at the end of his life on the infinite and eternal. And the LaSalle only touches the infinite once in all six of the quartets. Thankfully that one time was in the String Quartet No.14 in C sharp minor, perhaps the greatest string quartet ever written. In the C sharp minor, the LaSalle's performance is as numinous as the work itself. But while the LaSalle comes very close to the infinite in the B flat major quartet, there is a hairsbreadth of distance between the group and the eternal. And while in the E flat major, the F major, and the Grosse Fuge, one can almost hear the eternal in the performance, it is darkly, as though through a glass. This is well worth hearing at least once, but only the C sharp minor demands re-listening. by James Leonard

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