Summer With The Juilliard String Quartet

[JSngry]

I got these sets lined up and am thinking that a total immersion summer is in order. Any commentary in advance is certainly welcome!

I know the later 1969(?) Bartok, but not this earlier one. Also excited that the earliest recordings are weighted towards more (then) recent composers.

Summer's almost here and the time is right for chillin' in the AC.

[HutchFan]

Sounds like a fun summer project.

 

[JSngry]

Should be, yeah!

Thinking about adding the Complete Beethoven Quartets 1964-1970 box, but not sure if this is the best group for that? Opinions welcome.

[JSngry]

Summer's here and the time is right!

Technically, a Milhaud record, but included here for the JSQ's appearance on side one backing Madeleine Milhaud's recitations, which are mostly lost on me. not speaking French. Lotte Lenya in German, I can get. This, not so much. Someday, perhaps.

But quite the treat indeed is "Side Two", Milhaud at the piano alone. It's gorgeous.

 

[JSngry]

Milton Babbitt's use of the term "tonic sonority" in these liner notes is generating a parade of lightbulbs about all kinds of music, beginning but not ending with Sonny Rollins.

[JSngry]

I was advised at one point to look for interpretations of these works with a "Hungarian" flavor, and I'm glad I did.

These 1950 readings do not have that, and it's boldly apparent. But what they do have is a brash mid-century boldness of "modernity" and the works more than hold up to it.

Either way, miraculous music.