Our Summer BAL 20: Berg String Quartet

[verismissimo]

It's down-time for the real thing again. So...

Runners and riders for this great string quartet!

In the past two years, over the summer break, we've covered:

Bach cello suites
Bach Goldberg
Beethoven PS 32
Berlioz Harold in Italy
Brahms 3
Brahms Serenade 1
Britten Les Illuminations
Elgar Cello C
Franck VS
Haydn 92
Prokofiev Cinderella
Smetana Ma Vlast
Schoenberg VC
Schumann 4
Strauss Also

[LeMartinPecheur]

No contest verismissimo! Clear winner the Alban Berg quartet played by the Alban Berg Quartet (simples!) - Teldec LP 1974 bought when I was a student.

And pretty tough listening I found it - time perhaps to give it a 2nd spin

[Actually I do have a CD version, the LaSalle 4tet in their now ridiculously cheap box set of 2nd Viennese school quartets. Reckon that could be decent competition...]

[verismissimo]

My first was the Weller Quartet on Decca from 1965, which I thought spiffing. A revelation. Some time later I picked up the recording by the Kohon Quartet of New York University on Turnabout (nd). The only version I have on CD is by the Juilliard Quartet from 1952.

Of course, it's early Berg (Op 3 from 1910), while the composer was still very much under the spell of Schoenberg. Disastrous premiere in Vienna. For a young man, it shows extraordinary maturity and mastery of the medium.

[verismissimo]

Is it only LMP and me for this great work?

[umslopogaas]

I dont know it and dont have a recording, a gap I shall now fill. The Penguin Guide recommends the Leipzig Quartet.

[verismissimo]

I wonder if the lack of response to this Summer BAL is:

1. Don't know it (as um)
2. Don't like it
3. Don't remember if I like it or not
4. Don't care
5. Other

[amateur51]

I know & like the recording by the LaSalle quartet in this magnificent bargain box

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-String-Quartets/dp/B001MUJSXW/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1373625017&sr=1-1&keywords=Berg%2C+Schoenberg%2C+Webern+Brilliant

And I'd like to get to know this box of recordings by the Juilliard quartet too

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/West%2BHill%2BRadio%2BArchive/WHRA6040

In time, perhaps ...

[visualnickmos]

I dont know it and dont have a recording, a gap I shall now fill. The Penguin Guide recommends the Leipzig Quartet.

I became a bit dubious about Penguin Guide recommendations in the 90s when they seemed to (and I generalise exageratedly!) say that anything with Karajan, and/or Pavarotti was the one to go for. I since regard their recommendations not just as 'recommendations' but as a guide that tells me that I may in fact NOT go for the recommendation in question. I sometimes adopt the same position on listening to BaL.

[verismissimo]

I know & like the recording by the LaSalle quartet in this magnificent bargain box

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-String-Quartets/dp/B001MUJSXW/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1373625017&sr=1-1&keywords=Berg%2C+Schoenberg%2C+Webern+Brilliant

I've only hesitated about the Brilliant Lasalle box because I've a couple of superb LPs by them from it.

Taken the plunge, joyfully.

[umslopogaas]

The 2010 Penguin Guide does actually warn that "The Leipzig Quartet's performances were coolly received in some quarters ..." I've ordered up the Alban Berg Quartet version, which comes in a box with several other CDs, so I am impatient to find out what else I'm getting.

I take the point that the Penguin Guide is only a guide, and to some extent must reflect the personal preferences of the compilers. However, there are four of them, so the choices must usually be a consensus, and they are four very experienced critics, or at least, three of them are: I've never heard of the fourth, Paul Czajkowski, and there is no information about him. To a non-musician like me, it is a useful book (though at forty quid, it'll be a few years before I buy an update).

[visualnickmos]

(though at forty quid, it'll be a few years before I buy an update).

FORTY QUID!!!!! I'd rather blow forty smackers on speculative CD purchases if it came to a choice of having to spend the dosh

And - I think one gets great advice and guidance on here in the general ebb and flow of "conversations" - and more lively as well

[umslopogaas]

Visualnickmos, those were my thoughts too. It is true that you get a great deal of information for forty quid (actually if there is a 2013 edition it will be even more expensive) - 9000 reviews and over 1300 pages, but it is also true that each new edition incorporates much of the previous ones, and that Penguin must sell quite a lot of them. Anyway, I dont use it a lot, since I have recordings of most of the standard repertoire, and rely more on Gramophone to recommend me recordings of music that is new to me. Once a month I can pretty much guarantee Gramophone will cause a dent in my wallet!

[verismissimo]

I've only hesitated about the Brilliant Lasalle box because I've a couple of superb LPs by them from it.

Taken the plunge, joyfully.

Superb playing of Schoenberg by the Lasalles. On to their Webern and Berg.

What an amazing bargain this box is.

[Arcades Project]

The LaSalle box is a fine recommendation - my first choice for the Berg Qt. would be the Ardittis on Auvidis Montaigne, but it's deleted .