The Greatest String Quartets

[Tomo]

Mr Chamber Nut!!!  Get on that right now, they are some of the greatest works that you will ever hear!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, you're getting me all hot and bothered. 

Any specific recommendations?

[Dana]

If a listener understood the context under which this piece was composed, it might just be the catalyst toward their understanding of the depths to which classical music can aspire and move them to explore further, so I'm glad you mentioned it.

And what, pray tell, was that context?

but I still prefer the string quintets.

I concur! I recommend this recording, which also includes a fantastic rendition of the octet.

[Tomo]

And what, pray tell, was that context?

I concur! I recommend this recording, which also includes a fantastic rendition of the octet.

Have to be quick here as I'm late to work, but my reference was to his composing the piece as a prisoner of war held by the Germans in WWII, how its first performance was before fellow captives as well as guards at a stalag, and how he had to compose around certain instruments in disrepair.

[Tomo]

I'm not sure as to the complete accuracy of the following, but here is what one reviewer at Amazon wrote:

Messaien wrote "Quartet for the End of Time" in a Nazi prison camp. This work was first performed by half-starved prisoners on broken instruments, to an audience of arrogant Nazi prison camp guards and officials, and the people they had enslaved in the name of the Third Reich.

The work that Messaien composed in the face of this titanic evil was not a work of anger or bitterness. It was not a work of resignation to an inevitable fate or a hymn to depression. Messaien chose to represent, musically, the end of all things, as described in the Book of Revelations in the Bible. In its austerity and its serenity, the Quartet informs the Nazis: You are in control now, in this place, at this time, but your control is not absolute. Your Reich will not last 1000 years. You may attempt whatever you like and kill millions, but your time will be done, and you will be banished to nothingness.




Messaien hid his message behind the context of the Book of Revelations, which he interpreted not in the fashion of modern day "born again" fundamentalists, but in a mystical way, as a spiritual event that had resonance in his time. What was Hitler but an Anti-Christ, a beast attempting to set himself up as a God? Messaien called upon the power of the Word and set it to music, a music that was intended to work as a memory of redemption, a reminder that evil cannot, and will not, triumph over good no matter how profound the evil may be. It is also the sound of a man calling on his God to avenge the evil that has overtaken the world. If the Nazis had truly known what Messaien was telling them, they would have shot him.

Musically, Messaien was forced to write the Quartet for the instruments he had available to him. He also had to take into account that the instruments were half-broken; for example, the piano that was used in the original performance was missing strings and therefore there were notes that it could not play. Messaien wrote with all this in mind, and with his subject matter in mind.

The Quartet is definitely a 20th Century work. Messaien had been writing works outside of the accepted "classical" form for some time, but here he abandons time signatures, uses extreme chromaticism and wide tonal variations, sweeps of dynamic range, and unexpected, perhaps unprecedented, tonalities and atonalities.

But he did all this with focus. So many 20th Century composers made music that seemed an academic exercise. Messaien, here, uses every musical expression in his power, every type of music that he knows how to write, every sound that he hears in his head, to write the Quartet for the End of Time, in the service of God and Man and Freedom. This sets the Quartet utterly apart, in my mind, from any other piece of 20th Century classical music, and elevates it to a higher level than nearly any other 20th Century music. Only the musician Albert Ayler would come close to expressing the kind of intense spirituality combined with overwhelming musical technique expressed here.

I can only add here that this performance, by these artists, is and has been the definitive performance of the Quartet for the End of Time, and that they bring this music to life with conviction and clarity.

It feels cheap and commonplace to tell people that they should "own" this piece of music; it is far too majestic to be "owned" in any sense by anyone. The Quartet for the End of Time is one of the most profound works of art that the human race has ever produced. You should have this, not out of any sense of acquisitiveness or one-upmanship, but because it provides a doorway into the heart of God and the heart of humanity that is nearly unparalleled in the history of music.


Really gotta run now...

[karlhenning]

Okay, I'm puzzled.  The thread is about string quartets, right?

And we all know that Le quatuor pour la fin du temps is not a string quartet, right?

[snyprrr]

Ah...the phenomenon known as "thread drift" has occured. Fascinating, Captain! Soon we'll be talking about quarts of milk!

And, to all my critics...pffft!!! May you all buy the Philip Glass box set!

[ChamberNut]

Maybe we could just rename it Greatest Quartets?

[snyprrr]

Quartz Zits...ouch!

[DavidW]

Now, you're getting me all hot and bothered. 

Any specific recommendations?

I like the Raphael Ensemble for the quintets.

[ChamberNut]

Favorite String Quartet fois deux?

Mendelssohn's Octet.  0:)

[karlhenning]

I like the Raphael Ensemble for the quintets.

Quintets in a quartet thread!?!??

Gawain, Ector & Bors . . . that's five

[Dana]

Okay, I'm puzzled.  The thread is about string quartets, right?

And we all know that Le quatuor pour la fin du temps is not a string quartet, right?

What?

[karlhenning]

Dana! The reputation of your school hangs in the balance! 

[ChamberNut]

Dana! The reputation of your school hangs in the balance! 

[Dana]

      Well, the piano has got strings in it, so that's one **non-string** instrument dealt with, and my dad has a friend who's strung a wire into an old clarinet to turn it into a lamp (with the bulb in place of the mouthpiece), so I'm gonna count the clarinet as a stringed instrument too. Done!

[karlhenning]

I'll give you a bulb in place of the mouthpiece . . . .

How many Beethoven string quartets need a lightbulb changed?

[Dana]

Six?

[Tomo]

David and Dana,

Thanks kindly for your suggestions.  I was impatient last night so I downloaded the Naxos disc.  Was quite pleased and especially enjoyed the #2.  I'm going to keep your suggestions in mind though for down the road.

Now, as for Messaien's famous "lamp" string quartet, I read a lot of interesting information today regarding his use of the bird, the design of the rhythms, and the reported reasoning behind using eight movements and will be listening to it again armed anew with this knowledge.

[karlhenning]

Yes, Messiaen could flip the bird like no one else.

[Tahar Mouslim]

SQs 101:

Haydn Op.76/2 "Fifths"
Haydn Op.77 1-2

Mozart "Dissonance" Quartet

Beethoven Op.132, Op.130, Op.59, Op.74

Debussy/Ravel (always together!)

Janacek 1-2

Shostakovich No.6, No.7, No.8, No.10, No.15

Faure (only one)

MODERN/SCARY:

Ligeti No.2

Xenakis Tetras

VoxBox series 1950-1970



This is obviously only, only for the newbie, and obviously, obviously this is almost a non-starter. Let's see if it goes!

EDIT:

Sibelius "Voces Intimae"

Bartok No.3

Villa-Lobos No.5

Prokofiev 1-2

String Quartet is the musical form I love the most. That's why this thread is one of these I have been reading among the first ones.

Don't wanna be a pain in the butt, but - even for the newbies - why are Opus 95, 131 & 135 missing?

Opus 95 is almost perfect in form, as perfect as the oldest bonsaïs could be.

Opus 131 is so full of inspiration, ideas, usage of different forms that it is one of the most amazing ever written: and this adagio quasi un poco andante which starts like the Kaddish prayer !

Opus 135 is so modern: almost prefiguring Leos Janacek's quartet written just a century later !

The only one I would be able to remove from the list is opus 127, but only if I'd be forced to do it  

Other than that, I certainly agree with everything on your list.

I just would add a few, though:

- Schubert G major D 887,

- Brahms B flat major, opus 67,

- Pavel Haas, 2nd quartet, opus 7

- The complete Bela Bartok corpus,

- Mosolov No 1,

- Roslavets No 1,

- Complete Schoenberg corpus,

- among modern quartets: those of György Kurtag & André Boucourechliev are superb in my mind, as well as the corpus of the Sarnia Composer Raymond Murray Schafer

Besides, even if it is just me, I admire the corpus of string quartets by Milton Babbitt, Iannis Xenakis & Roger Sessions.