Talking about string quartets

[kea]

I think my question has been discussed on the forum previously but I have the Emerson 1988 recordings of the Bartok Quartets. I believe although at the time they were reviewed well that now they are slightly out of favour. So recommendations?

Entirely depends on what you look for in Bartók.

My top three picks:
Juilliard 1963
Takács 1996
Végh 1972

+ these single discs
Ebène (1, 2 & 3)
Arcanto (5 & 6)

The Zehetmair Quartet's also been highly recommended but I haven't heard it, though I'm sure others here have.

As for Jonathan Harvey's quartets I remember enjoying the first two, and the String Trio. I don't remember much about the other two. It has been a while though, and my enthusiasm for Harvey's music has rather waned, so I'm not sure what I'd find if I revisited them.

[Roehre]

..... But IMO there isn't an instrumental combination as such which could be described as more or less perfect than any other, surely. (It's kind of an article of faith for me that there is something interesting to be done with any conceivable combination of instruments, which would then hopefully be "perfect" for that particular work.)

Beethoven's last sketches were intended for other combinations than string quartets: a string quintet (of which the score of the opening slow introduction of the 1st mvt has disappeared but has survived in a piano transcription by Diabelli (WoO 62))and a quintet for flute and strings.

[Barbirollians]

I bought the old Julliard set for a song a few years back and have never felt the need for another . They are superb performances .

[Richard Barrett]

Indeed I believe Schubert's Quintet in C was some form of response to Beethoven not living to write his own.

As for Bartók, for me it has to be the Hagen or the Keller or the Hungarian. Coincidentally I was listening to the latter's 4th and 5th during an otherwise tedious day on and off trains and planes yesterday... they sound more like a single instrument than any other quartet I've heard playing these pieces, although some might find their sound and approach astringent. I've never seen much in the Emerson and I find the Juillard's vibrato unlistenable.

Oh, and I may have said this before, but Harvey's 2nd quartet is by far my favourite piece of his, I'm not really an admirer (though I feel I need to add that he was a lovely human being and I greatly wish I liked his work more) but this for me is one of the highlights of the genre.

[Beef Oven!]

Indeed I believe Schubert's Quintet in C was some form of response to Beethoven not living to write his own.

As for Bartók, for me it has to be the Hagen or the Keller or the Hungarian. Coincidentally I was listening to the latter's 4th and 5th during an otherwise tedious day on and off trains and planes yesterday... they sound more like a single instrument than any other quartet I've heard playing these pieces, although some might find their sound and approach astringent. I've never seen much in the Emerson and I find the Juillard's vibrato unlistenable.

Oh, and I may have said this before, but Harvey's 2nd quartet is by far my favourite piece of his, I'm not really an admirer (though I feel I need to add that he was a lovely human being and I greatly wish I liked his work more) but this for me is one of the highlights of the genre.

I have the Keller and enjoy the music very much.

Regarding Meyer, a while back, I posted a picture of an even bigger CD by a composer, not too far away from this discussion!

Found the Harvey 2nd Sqt on youtube. It's difficult music, isn't it?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not really an admirer (though I feel I need to add that he was a lovely human being and I greatly wish I liked his work more)

Exactly sums up my response, too. (With me it's Mortuos plango, vivos voco that's the "exceptional" work.)

[ChrisBennell]

I find that occasionally I can come back to a work I haven't heard for years (or perhaps have even avoided!), and completely change my opinion. Last year, after a substantial diet of Britten, Shostakovich, Beethoven Op59 s, Dvorak American etc, I went to a concert containing Tchaikovsky's Quartet No1 - and was completely bowled over by it! (Perhaps I should try the 1st Piano Concerto again!!)

There must be a moral in it somewhere.

[Richard Barrett]

With me it's Mortuos plango, vivos voco that's the "exceptional" work.

Exceptionally strongly influenced by a work for rather similar resources by a composer Jonathan wrote a book about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nffOJXcJCDg

don't you think? (OK, MPVV has bells on)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Exceptionally strongly influenced by a work for rather similar resources by a composer Jonathan wrote a book about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nffOJXcJCDg

don't you think? (OK, MPVV has bells on)

Oh, yes - I was at the UK premiere when that was the most immediately obvious thing about it. But still a lovely piece.

And the Second Quartet that BeefO linked to was mightily impressive, too - I'll have to give this body of work another listen, but but the memory of neither performance of the Fourth that I attended doesn't ... well, y'know ...

[verismissimo]

For a standalone recent recording of Bartok 2, I think that the Brooklyn Rider performance on their A Walking Fire CD is exceptionally good.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-Fire-Brooklyn-Rider/dp/B00CJ87QSK/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1413138043&sr=1-1&keywords=brooklyn+walking+fire

It comes along with quartet music by Ljova and Colin Jacobsen (second violin in the band).

[Bryn]

For a standalone recent recording of Bartok 2, I think that the Brooklyn Rider performance on their A Walking Fire CD is exceptionally good.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-Fire-Brooklyn-Rider/dp/B00CJ87QSK/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1413138043&sr=1-1&keywords=brooklyn+walking+fire

Very much agree. As to fairly recent complete surveys, the Belcea Quartet is very fine. I really must investigate the Hagen set. ISTR Mr. Barrett had good things to say about their recordings. My introduction to these works was the SAGA manifestation of the Fine Arts Quartet's set (which has since appeared on CD, along with the one surviving recording of a radio programme dealing with the 1st Quartet). That set too I would recommend.

[EdgeleyRob]

Obsessed with SQs lately,listened to the Smetana quartets earlier,certainly the heart and soul of this composer.
Dvorak Op 105 too,so much emotion in the Lento.
Clearly doesn't work for a lot of composers,but so many quartets are autobiographical it seems to me.
String Quartet nuts should really give the Weinberg set a try.

Thanks BeefO for the Meyer tip,next on the list here.

[ahinton]

so many quartets are autobiographical it seems to me

...as one member here illustrates as well as anyone by going so far as to identify a work as such, self-portraiture presumably being nothing if not autobiographical...

String Quartet nuts should really give the Weinberg set a try.

They certainly should!

[verismissimo]

Obsessed with SQs lately,listened to the Smetana quartets earlier,certainly the heart and soul of this composer...

Until fairly recently, Smetana's second quartet was rarely played - deemed to be disjointed and inferior, the result of his late syphilitic condition. I shared this view until I heard the Lindsays play it live at Blackheath. Overwhelming. Smetana's heart and soul, as you say, Rob.

[Richard Barrett]

so many quartets are autobiographical it seems to me

Not wanting to get all "heavyweight" on you but for me this begs the question of what it means (to you) for a piece of instrumental music to be "autobiographical". I'm not saying there's no such thing, there are explicit examples from Beethoven and more cryptic ones from Shostakovich and Janáček of course, but outside those...? (and those composers certainly didn't limit their "autobiographical" music to their string quartets)