@bruce19 I am probably the last guy to ask about John Coltrane. He is not my fav all the way around, although I prefer his early recording best. The things he did on Prestige and with Miles on Columbia and with Canonball are all musical. I really like old jazz more, so when it comes to saxophones I like Young and Hawkins and really all the guys who played in the early bands for Ellington, Henderson, Basie etc.. I liked all the swing small group sessions that were recorded by labels like Commodore, Black & White, Keynote etc.. Then when BeBop came in there was Parker of course and a lot of followers. I got real interested in the West Coast Jazz thing too. Bud Shank, Art Pepper, Sonny Stitt. Then along came Brubeck and for a long time I listened to Paul Desmond. Remember the Bossa Nova craze? Stan Getz sold more records than any other sax player ever, if I'm not mistaken. You'll notice in this quick run down that somehow Coltrane and Rollins aren't showing up. We all like what we like. I am a simple guy. Maybe those guys are just too sophisticated 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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Both of you are knowledgeable and I thank you for the suggestions including several composers I am unfamiliar with. Listening to the sparse and contemplative Fragmente-Stille composed by Luigi Nono right now. Thanks!
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