Please be patient with me. I am a jazz person. Beethoven's Late Quartets are quite beyond me. Sort of like trying to comprehend late Coltrane. Incomprehensible. I am more of a pre-Classical kind of guy. Bach, J.S. that is, makes sense to me. So who did he listen to? Vivaldi, yes that is good music. I Musici did the Four Seasons a couple of times. Wonderful. Baroque and Early Music. That is all good for me.
Favorite Classical String Quartets
When I started listening to Classical Music as a teenager over 50 years ago I quickly became seduced by the sounds of a string quartet. My school library had a Seraphim 3LP set of Beethoven Middle Period Quartets with the Hungarian SQ (this was in stereo; they had recorded them in mono as well). Op. 59/1, the first of the Razumovsky Quartets, was my seductress: those long soulful cello lines, with the viola weaving in and out, the violins then sweetly taking over the main themes, and then all the instruments trading places-I was hooked.
59/3 has a second movement dominated by the cellist who sounds like a jazz walking bass, and that furious fugal finale. The Harp Quartet in that with its flying pizzicatos was another revelation.
Beethoven’s late quartets are another thing entirely, and took a few generations for nineteenth century listeners to absorb. Mozart and Haydn invented the genre and a lot of their best music is in their quartets.
The aforementioned Classical Period composers are generally thought to have represented the apex of the genre, but I have always been fascinated by Dvorak, Borodin, and Shostakovich, all of whom seemed to luxuriate in the special sonic world of the string quartet.
Other favorites?
T
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Well thanks for posting Bill but you actually haven’t discussed String Quartets. I suspect that you haven’t had much exposure to them. Let me recommend a few:
Beethoven Middle Quartets, particularly Op.59/1 and 3 mentioned in my OP. Dvorak”American Quartet” Borodin String Quartet #2 Samuel Barber String Quartet-most of this has the music “Adagio For Strings” that Oliver Stone used so effectively in the movie Platoon
The quartets (1 each) of Debussy and Ravel. These will expand your harmonic palette. If you like Bill Evan’s you will love these
Shostakovich- Quartets #8 and 11.
The Quartet Medium was developed during the classical period, so there isn’t any Baroque Music actually composed for it, but there are arrangements of earlier music. These violinist Dimitri Sitkovitsky arranged JS Bach Goldberg Variations for SQ, and also Bach’s Art of Fugue and Musical Offerings have been arranged for SQ |
Probably better to start with Haydn String Quartets for @billstevenson this album is excellent in my opinion https://youtu.be/akMIGQrhzU8?is=wiQl3HQTrKnx_Sjp
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@mahler123 I feel the same way you do, the small group format really seems to let the work of the musicians and the composer shine. I also like it because I realized one day that it represents music I could actually have in my living room as opposed to a symphony and because of that it just seems all the more convincing to me as an audiophile. But surely you must also enjoy trios, duets, and quintets? I do. Haydn is my go to comfort music, the world he creates with his music is full of reason, peace, and order. A pretty good antidote for what we face day-to-day. |
@mahler123 thanks for your suggestions. I most likely have all or most of these and will give them a listen. I have the complete works of pretty much all of the composers you mention, often more than one set of performers. So for example I have the complete Beethoven on DGG, but also the complete Bernstein, the complete Ormandy, the complete...well you get the idea. I have thousands of records and cds. I listen to all of it, comprehension...like I said pre-classical yes. So I am doing ok with Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Handel. But Beethoven...early ok, middle I struggle, late I am lost. By the time we get to the Romantic period, Shubert, Shuman and Brahms and beyond, I am out of my depth. You mention Dvorak, I have his complete works. Same with Ravel. They are completely beyond me. Hopeless. Like I am from Mars. I can understand Stravinsky, particularly the percussiveness of it. It is almost primitive. |
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