Summer With The Juilliard String Quartet

[JSngry]

This is a good record.

[JSngry]

This music has FIGHT!!!

[JSngry]

Maybe I'm tired, but first impression is that these compositions benefit greatly from the performance, not unlike a Sonny Stitt record where the tunes are tired but the playing is anything but.

Still, the writing does sound a bit incestuous, to be honest. Music selected by a committee, who should be surprised?

[T.D.]

The little I've heard of Andrew Imbrie I liked quite a bit. Granted he's in the "academic composer" genre and those people tend to blur together.

Long ago I heard a concert in Merkin Hall, NYC...ISTR he was the featured composer, but am not sure.

I still have this CD, which is rather good.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 03:26 AM by T.D.

[JSngry]

They can tend to blur together, so I am going to listen fresh tomorrow. I just heard a lot of "devices" along the way. To be fair, it wasn't all that. But it was what caught my ear this evening.

I've learned to "never say never", though, especially after just one listen (Mozart is coming pretty close though...God only knows why). That's a big reason for this Juilliard project, to check out a LOT of repertoire as well as hearing the evolution of a single band. 

So much still to learn...

I have a Milton Babbitt record by Parnassus. Got it at the tails end of my last swim in those waters, so it's there to come back to with fresh ears. Good band, for sure.

A lot of this type music sounds to me like what Stan Kenton would have been commissioning if he had any real sense about what he thought he was doing. He got lucky with Graettinger.

[Mark Stryker]

I LOVE this summer project!!

I've spent a lot of time with the JSQ over the years on record and in person. I don't have all the records but I have a LOT of it on LP -- and I heard them live fairly consistently from the mid 1980s until almost the present day; I also spoke on more than one occasion to Robert Mann, Joel Krosnick, and Sam Rhodes for various stories, and a decade ago I moderated a post-concert panel with the group after it played Elliott Carter's First Quartet. Don't have time to get into it all here, but I will say that for me the real sweet spot as an ensemble is between 1956-1966 -- that's where you have the most rewarding balance between a unified ensemble but with each player allowed maximum freedom as individuals, and where the interpretations mellow a bit from the sometimes relentless modernism of its early years into a more pliable expressionism that captures the full measure of any and all repertoire. Of course, there's great stuff from before this period and after, though from the mid '70s going forward the playing gets more inconsistent. But when everybody was on, they could still bring it. 

Coda 1: The second Bartok cycle was recorded in 1963 and released as individual LPs but may not have appeared in a box until the late '60s. I can't recall all the release details. Fantastic cycle.

Coda 2: The Mozart "Haydn" quartets on Epic are truly amazing -- maybe the surprising of the Juilliard's great recordings given the ensemble's pedigree. All the standard rep recorded by the group in this period is pretty great. 

Coda 3: The RCA Debussy/Ravel remains my favorite recording of these works. 

Coda 4: The late Beethoven quartets recorded for RCA are also peak JSQ, as is  the Berg LP. 

Onward. ...

 

[JSngry]

18 hours ago, JSngry said:

They can tend to blur together, so I am going to listen fresh tomorrow. I just heard a lot of "devices" along the way. To be fair, it wasn't all that. But it was what caught my ear this evening.

Fresh ears did indeed help. Hearing the details inside the devices did wonders!

Next up in the box:

Very much appreciate the execution, but...no thanks. Had the same reaction to the Mozart disc in The New Music String Quartet box of a few years ago.

Love that cover though!

[Mark Stryker]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

Fresh ears did indeed help. Hearing the details inside the devices did wonders!

Next up in the box:

Very much appreciate the execution, but...no thanks. Had the same reaction to the Mozart disc in The New Music String Quartet box of a few years ago.

Love that cover though!

FWIW -- the JSQ's Mozart recordings that I find special are the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, Nos. 13-19, which were recorded for Epic in the early '60s. The record you are lukewarm about includes Nos. 20/21 and was recorded in the early '50s and is an altogether different kettle of fish--different 2nd fiddle, different cellist, different aesthetic: the earlier LP is more tensile and relentlessly modernist; the latter more relaxed without sacrificing intensity and sometimes even charm, the latter of which, as you know, is not something associated very often with the JSQ. 

When you get to the later Mozart, let me know if your reaction is different. It might not be, of course, but it might be ...

 

[JSngry]

Virgil Thomson was apparently an important figure at one time. My personal jury is still out on that importance, although I've only heard a few things. This String Quartet is "nice enough"...but the Quartet is in great form. And the last movement does take it up a notch.

The William Shuman piano piece is actually very enjoyable, and might not sound "classical" to certain "jazz" ears. Pianist Beveridge Webster certainly has a name suitable for jazz and a touch not terribly far removed from Ran Blake or the more nebulous side of Paul Bley. Certainly pulled me in!

25 minutes ago, Mark Stryker said:

FWIW -- the JSQ's Mozart recordings that I find special are the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, Nos. 13-19, which were recorded for Epic in the early '60s. The record you are lukewarm about includes Nos. 20/21 and was recorded in the early '50s and is an altogether different kettle of fish--different 2nd fiddle, different cellist, different aesthetic: the earlier LP is more tensile and relentlessly modernist; the latter more relaxed without sacrificing intensity and sometimes even charm, the latter of which, as you know, is not something associated very often with the JSQ. 

When you get to the later Mozart, let me know if your reaction is different. It might not be, of course, but it might be ...

 

You know, I looked and realized that I do have that record on a scratchy LP that I pulled out of the used bins precisely because it was JSQ. I do recall playing it through a few times and thinking that this was probably going to be a close as I was going to get to actually LIKING Mozart (although I'm leaving the door open for the operas at some point...DVDs with subtitles preferred!)

 

[JSngry]

So...the second time through the Virgil Thomson piece has been a bit more interesting than the first. A bit more harmonic interest than I heard at first. Maybe a third time is called for, in the AM.

So ..was this guy really all that or was he ultimately "of his time"?