String Quartet Cycles

[7/4]

[Guest youmustbe]

Well besides the obvious, Bartok, Shostakovich......

For me in no particular order, Kevin Volans, Britten, the last 3 of Tippett, Janacek's two and Carter's....heard all 5 Carter's by Pacifica Quartet in January...anyone at that from this board?

I also heard the Lachenmann 3rd played by the Arditti, there is no recording, and it knocked me out. His first 2 are the usual jerking off of that period in the German 'avante garde' of post WWII. Like with Kagel whose 3rd is also wonderful after the whacking off of his first 2.

One of my in-laws who just retired from perfoming as a violinist with a number of well know orchestra's as well as being in PDQ Bach, told me once after he played a Crumb piece that anytime a composer has the musicians clap hands, or speak, howl or what have you, that means that the composer is faking it.

BTW I hope to throw my hat in the ring so to speak and record my transcriptions of Keith Jarrett for string quartet this year....

[WD45]

There was some discussion of Milhaud's String Quartets here:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=5737

I would like to echo once again my love for his first String Quartet.

Daedelus Music has the disc with the Milhaud First String Quartet for $4.98! Buy buy buy!

http://www.daedalusbooks.com/Products/Deta...ProductID=49003

[Larry Kart]

I like this recording of Lennox Berkeley's three string quartets:

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.570415

In fact, while Berkeley is not a "great" composer, I like every work of his I've heard -- and I've heard a lot.

[A Lark Ascending]

A couple of interesting looking (if pricey) books on the horizon:

I suspect they may be too academic for me; hopefully not. I could do with something that can unravel some of the goings on in this music in laymans terms. I'm increasingly taken by the music but know I'm just scratching the surface.

[7/4]

A couple of interesting looking (if pricey) books on the horizon:

I suspect they may be too academic for me; hopefully not. I could do with something that can unravel some of the goings on in this music in laymans terms. I'm increasingly taken by the music but know I'm just scratching the surface.

They are pricey!

But they do look interesting.

[A Lark Ascending]

A couple of interesting looking (if pricey) books on the horizon:

I suspect they may be too academic for me; hopefully not. I could do with something that can unravel some of the goings on in this music in laymans terms. I'm increasingly taken by the music but know I'm just scratching the surface.

They are pricey!

But they do look interesting.

They appear to be available as either two separate volumes or one single volume. The $100 tag seems to be for the single volume version. The two separate volumes are priced at £35 each here - expensive, but not prohibatively so for books that would not just be read once but constantly referred to.

The key point for me will be how technical (or not) they are. I'll have to see a copy first.

[7/4]

Anyone here heard Ben Johnston's string quartets? I've heard parts of his Microtonal Piano and liked the sounds mucho.

Oh yeah. For a Harry Partch student, he sounds nothing like him. His (classical) music is a departure from all that minimalism and Asian influence that most folks associate with microtonal music.

• Kepler Quartet
  
  
• sequenza21 article
  
  
• A Conversation with Ben Johnston
  
  

The Microtonal Piano music is amazing, a bit different from what others have done with the piano and microtones. Less of the hymnotic drone and more of the abstract splat.

Thanks for bringing up Ben Johnston's music -- I adore this music. The Kepler's CD is the first of what I believe is a projected three CDs of Ben's 10 quartets -- a heroic project. Thanks to a Kronos recording from some time ago, the best known is No. 4, a mesmerizing set of microtonal variations on "Amazing Grace." The earlier works are basically atonal and idiosyncratic in their use of avant-garde techniques. The later works return to tonality with more references to the past. I recall the 9th as being particularly warm hearted. All of his music is profoundly human, often witty. Ben was still teaching at the University of Illinois when I arrived on campus in 1981. He retired a couple years later and I unfortunately never got to know him.

newly released: Ben Johnston: String Quartets 1, 5, and 10

[Д.Д.]

I greatly enjoy Prokofiev's two string quartets. I remember being transfixed by the live performance of the 2nd quartet by the Shostakovich String Quartet back in Moscow 15 years ago. The opening movement with its dance punch.. amazing. I still have to find a performance of it I would be completely satisfied with, but this one is good, and has an excellent ethereal quartet by Nadarejshvili as a bonus: http://www.amazon.com/Nadarejshvili-Prokofiev-String-Quartets-Sergey/dp/B00000JHLN/ref=pd_krex_fa_img

Also, I think Ravel's beautiful sole quartet has not been mentioned. I have the Quartetto Italiano performance on EMI (paired with Debussy's and Mihaud's quartets), and it is excellent.

[7/4]

Also, I think Ravel's beautiful sole quartet has not been mentioned. I have the Quartetto Italiano performance on EMI (paired with Debussy's and Mihaud's quartets), and it is excellent.

Absolutely! It's always paired with Ravels only string qt. I have the performance by the Emerson Qt.

I should dig into Prokofiev. I like his piano music that I've been exposed to.

Edited February 3, 2011 by 7/4

[Д.Д.]

I have the performance by the Emerson Qt.

I should dig into Prokofiev. I like his piano music that I've been exposed to.

Man, just forget about the Emersons, they are robots.

Prokofiev (together with Stravinsky) is probably my favorite 20th century classical composer. Not all of his stuff is good, but what is good is phenomenal.

[Chuck Nessa]

Man, just forget about the Emersons, they are robots.

[J.A.W.]

Man, just forget about the Emersons, they are robots.

Technically perfect, but robots indeed. Can't listen to them.

Candidates for the "vice-robots" title: the Alban Berg Quartett.

[Chuck Nessa]

agreed.

[Ron S]

Just starting to dig into these Supraphon recordings of the Pavel Haas Quartet, a young Czech (of course) quartet, playing the Janacek string quartets, as well as those by--who else?--Pavel Haas (a promising composer who tragically died at Auschwitz, possibly saving Karel Ancerl's life, according to Ancerl):

I very much like what I've heard so far.

No robots here.

Edited February 5, 2011 by Ron S

[7/4]

I'll have to check out another performance of the Debussy/Ravel qts., I'm pretty familiar with this one now.

[A Lark Ascending]

Just starting to dig into these Supraphon recordings of the Pavel Haas Quartet, a young Czech (of course) quartet, playing the Janacek string quartets, as well as those by--who else?--Pavel Haas (a promising composer who tragically died at Auschwitz, possibly saving Karel Ancerl's life, according to Ancerl):

I very much like what I've heard so far.

No robots here.

I have those - very enjoyable. The Haas pieces were completely unknown to me.

Though they are getting a lot of press and promotion. So you could up your cool credentials by getting in early denouncing them as robots.

[Stefan Wood]

I actually like the Tokyo String Quartet. Not robots at all.

[Д.Д.]

Just got this super-cheap EMI (yes, EMI is desperate) 2CD set of Britten quartets performed by Belcea Quartet: http://www.amazon.co...00798204&sr=8-1

This is my first experience both with the music and the performer, sounds excellent.

Edited March 22, 2011 by Д.Д.

[J.A.W.]

Just got this super-cheap EMI (yes, EMI is desperate) 2CD set of Britten quartets performed by Belcea Quartet: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Britten-String-Quartets-Nos-1-3/dp/B001DPC4A0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300798204&sr=8-1

This is my first experience both with the music and the performer, sound really excellent.

The Belcea Quartet's Schubert is also very fine.

[David Ayers]

I have recently been interested in the numerous quartets of Wolfgang Rihm, and the three quartets by Helmut Lachenmann. Outside the stone cold classics I am not much interested in earlier C20th also rans in this genre. So yes to Schoenberg, no to Zemlinsky. Yes to Bartok, no to Hindemith (and I like Hindemith). Odds and ends all over the place interest me but no to Bax, Bridge etc and most of Britten (extememe position I know). Etc. Yes to Debussy Ravel Janacek, I suppose, but all those works seem over familiar and somehow quite finite to me. Yes to Shostakovich but no to the Shostakovich myths!

The notion of a cycle is not really applicable to those composers who write for the genre but from different parts of their development (as with Lachenmann and I suppose Rihm).

[David Ayers]

PS Has anyone heard the recordings of Shostakovich by the Mandelring Quartet, which are due out now in a box set on SACD. Individual disks already issued?

BTW don't really agree about Emersons. Their style works well in a larger performance space. Yes a bit steely I suppose, maybe not that Russian either in Prokofiev or Shostakovich. Well they are the Emerson quartet, not the Kropotkin Quartet.

[J.A.W.]

BTW don't really agree about Emersons. Their style works well in a larger performance space. Yes a bit steely I suppose, maybe not that Russian either in Prokofiev or Shostakovich. Well they are the Emerson quartet, not the Kropotkin Quartet.

Every Emerson Quartet recording I've heard sounded technically perfect but cold, hard/steely and utterly impersonal to me. For me they are the emotional opposite of the Leonard Bernstein "style" of music making, and I dislike both "styles": one for its total lack of feeling, the other for being over the top, overly expressive, emotional and sentimental.

[David Ayers]

BTW don't really agree about Emersons. Their style works well in a larger performance space. Yes a bit steely I suppose, maybe not that Russian either in Prokofiev or Shostakovich. Well they are the Emerson quartet, not the Kropotkin Quartet.

Every Emerson Quartet recording I've heard sounded technically perfect but cold, hard and utterly impersonal to me. They made me run in the opposite direction.

I prefer them in the flesh to some more diffident quartets I have heard. But I don't often go to hear quartets.

[J.A.W.]

BTW don't really agree about Emersons. Their style works well in a larger performance space. Yes a bit steely I suppose, maybe not that Russian either in Prokofiev or Shostakovich. Well they are the Emerson quartet, not the Kropotkin Quartet.

Every Emerson Quartet recording I've heard sounded technically perfect but cold, hard and utterly impersonal to me. They made me run in the opposite direction.

I prefer them in the flesh to some more diffident quartets I have heard. But I don't often go to hear quartets.

I've edited my post to explain what I meant.