Sitkovitsky originally made a string trio arrangement and then expanded it to quartet. Try the Emerson or Juilliard Quartet recordings
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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I like Ruth Crawford Seeger's Quartet too, as well as the others you listed. The John Zorn collection has some really interesting works and some I don't like quite as much. Still, it is a very worthwhile set. Some other modern works worth mentioning: Elizabeth Maconchy- 13 String Quartets (No.3 is short and worth sampling) Katia Saariaho: 2 quartets by a living composer Glass-String Quartet No. 3 Ligeti: String Quartets Franghiz-Ali Zadah-Mugam Sayagi (a Kronos Quartet recording) Luigi Nono: Fragmente-Stille Reich: Different Trains (primarily a string quartet with looping, siren horn effects, recorded speech, etc.) |
@billstevenson out of curiosity I’d like to hear what you make of John Coltrane’s “my favorite things“. It might help me understand the apparent contradiction of your enjoyment of early classical but non-enjoyment of folk. I enjoy a lot of jazz but I’ve never been able to see the greatness of that phase of Coltrane’s career. On the other hand folk and early music appeal to me quite a bit usually. |
@mahler123 i can’t find any via TIDAL, Qobuz or even Google and Gemini. This is the only SQ Goldberg i can find: arranged and performed by the Catalyst Quartet. "Bach / Gould Project" album by "Catalyst Quartet" on JPLAY app. Open it on JPLAY: com.jplay.jplay://qobuz/album/yanmxuto8ybjb if you have a moment and can post a discogs or streaming link, i would appreciate it. I’d love to hear it. |
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