Classical Music
Related: About this forumLet's Talk About the String Quartet
I'm pretty ignorant of much classical music, but find myself listening to more of it lately. I am particularly enamored of the string quartet right now.
I need your input for the most important quartets written and your personal favorites.
Here's what I've been checking out. It's a start, I suppose, but there are huge wholes here...no Mozart, no Brahms:
The late Beethoven quartets
Schubert 12, 14, 15
The Debussy and the Ravel
Ralph Vaughan Williams 1 & 2
Prokofiev 1 & 2
The Bartok 6
Unfortunately, the genre seems to ebb and fall out of favor with composers at times.
I'm particularly trying to find pieces that bridge the Schubert/late Beethoven works to the Debussy and Ravel.
I also find myself wondering what composers who never published quartets (like Wagner and Mahler) would have done with them.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,031 posts)Fitzwilliam set, usually heavily discounted -but brilliant.
MilesColtrane
(18,678 posts)I got an iTunes gift cert. for Xmas.
Maybe I'll use it for that, if they have it.
dmallind
(10,437 posts)I'm not the greatest fan of string quartets personally, although the simple addition of a piano makes them one of my favorite ensembles. But to go from Beethoven to Debussy etc I'd suggest......
1) Late Ludwig Spohr - he wrote 30-odd SQs and anything after 28 or so postdates Beethoven and continues the transition to Romanticism (bit of silly trivia - he also invented the chin-rest)
2) Brahms 1 and 2 (3 is fine, but a bit more lighthearted). Late-ish in his career and like his symphonies, very much intentionally extending Beethoven's progress
3) Dvorak wrote quite a few - not realy great game-changers in style but beautiful melodically and enjoyable - later ones after 9 or so would make more sense for your historical POV
4) Franck gets you into the late Romantic and the Francophone musical environment
Debussy's SQ is early on in his career so start with that one once you get to the impressionists if you want to monitor the progression of the style. Ravel's (again only one) was a good decade or more later
Sibelius is a useful contemporary for these but more in the Wagnerian musical tradition.
I'd then go to Faure perhaps and certainly Prokofoev before tackling Shostakovich if you want to get an idea of the arc of the String Quartet. It's good stuff, but way more modern in harmonic flexibility etc than any mentioned above.
MilesColtrane
(18,678 posts)Very informative.
This will keep me listening for a while.
tjwmason
(14,819 posts)I think that in Shostakovich's case, the quartets were small enough to fly under the radar in a way that the symphonies weren't (though I love the symphonies too) and so he could express more of his angst and his position.
GoddessOfGuinness
(46,435 posts)Mozart K.458 'Hunt'
K.465 'Dissonance'
Dvorak Op. 51 'Slavonic'
Op. 96 'American'
Glazunov #3 'Slavonic'
Tchaikovsky #1
and to go beyond Bartok: Henri Dutilleux Ainsi la nuit, written in 1976
Mahler wrote a quartet movement for piano and strings, though I've not listened to it. He also rescored Schubert's Death and the Maiden and Beethoven's Op 95 quartet for string orchestra.
pbrower2a
(132 posts)The quartets that follow Dvorak's "American" quartet are also fine. I have heard a string quartet arrangement of the Kunst der Fuge of J.S. Bach; it might show musicological incorrectness, but it is impressive.
Mendelssohn wrote some nice ones. As for Mahler's early quartet movements for piano and strings it doesn't quite fit this category. It suggests early Debussy with some characteristics from the shtetl. This is one unique work; Mahler went in a very different direction.
But haven't we forgotten the one composer of string quartets who wrote the largest number of masterpiece in the genre -- Franz Josef Haydn?
Grantuspeace
(873 posts)Kick to show my love of Dvořák!
BeyondGeography
(39,393 posts)The Crimes and Misdemeanors quartet (sorry...). Listen to that intensely creative piece and think how much was lost when Schubert died at the age of 31. One of the great tragedies of the genre, but he did leave a mountain of gorgeousness behind.