Your Top 9 String Quartets

[Lilas Pastia]

I LOOOOVE this thread!!! Everyone is really digging!

Who is this "David Jones" character???

Daniel Jones maybe?

[snyprrr]

Daniel Jones maybe?

Yes. I'll look him up, but, per SQs, quien es? His best?

[Guido]

Crumb Black Angels

Ooh, I should hear that! 

[Lilas Pastia]

Re: Daniel Jones:

Yes. I'll look him up, but, per SQs, quien es? His best?

Sniper, it's hard to tell, I tend to listen to them all in sequence. But quartets 7 and 8 are especially good. Very concise, compact music. There's more said than actually heard. You should try looking at BRO's listings from time to time. I bought the 2-disc Chandos set there and have seen it come and go a few times. At a ridiculous price.

I forgot to ask: anyone heard David Diamond's quartets? IIRC they've been recorded but are hard to find. ARG have given them glowing reviews (unless it's Classics Today?).

Jeffrey mentioned Shebalin's: they are excellent.

And I forgot to mention one of last year's major discoveries: Krzystof Meyer's quartets definitely belong to the top tier. great stuff. Thanks to Mack the Knife my Warszawa friend 

[vandermolen]

Bloch No 1

Vaughan Williams No 2

Miaskovsky No 13

Alf Hurum SQ

Shostakovich No 15

[Fëanor]

Ooh, I should hear that! {Crumb: Black Angels}  

Gads! I've somehow managed to collect four versions.

[Cato]

The String Quartet is not my favorite medium, but here are some that I do like:

Bartok's String Quartet #6
Bruckner's String Quintet (Does that count?     )
Borodin's String Quartets #1 and #2
Bernard Herrmann's Echoes for String Quartet
Ravel's String Quartet in F Major
Schoenberg's String Quartets #2 and #3  (I prefer the string orchestra version of #2!)
Shostakovich's String Quartet #8 (I prefer the string orchestra version again!)

and...just for the shock value when I play it to the unsuspecting...

Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet!!!   

[snyprrr]

Points to Cato for upsetting the applecart!
Herrmann!!!niiice....

and Bartok 6. huh. there's a first.

[greg]

and Bartok 6. huh. there's a first.

It's in my list, too... I only began to appreciate it when I made up special imagery with it. 

[snyprrr]

Yea, it's so "unlike" the other SQs, and even though it might be the most "conventionally traditional" or even "romantic", a step back from 3-5, it's still unlike any other composer at the time (1939). It's still a bit elusive for me. I have yet to create alternative imagery (I understand exactly what you mean here).

[snyprrr]

Snyprrr's Top 9 "noise" SQs:

(my fav scrapey scrapes and plinky plonks and noodle wooshes)

1. Lachenmann Gran Torso (1971)
2. Ruzicka Introspezione (1970)
3. Kagel 1-2
4. Sciarrino sei quartetti brevi (maybe too much "music")
5. Penderecki No.1 (No.2 has too much "music"!!! haha)
6. Zorn The Dead Man
7. Spahlinger Apo Do
8. Ramos Pas encore
9. Gaussin Chakra (maybe to much "music")

I consider the epics by Crumb, Xenakis, and Holliger (my all time fav) to have to much "music" for strickly a "sounds" based tally (though the Holliger really has no "music"). Honorable mentions go to Earle Brown's SQ (1965); and Cage's SQ in Four Parts (1951), where, for the first time, I think, I hear...

My fav sound: that brutal "noise" sound when you put too much pressure on the string (used to great effect many times in Xenakis), that sounds like a creaking door. Runners up: super high gliss and pizz.

Any other great es-scrapes?

[Valentino]

Hagen Quartett manage to introduce some pretty wierd sounds in the Janacek quartets.

List:

Janacek 2
DSCH 3
Haydn 33/2
Mozart K. 421
Bartok 4
Beethoven 18/4, 132, 59/3, 95.

[snyprrr]

If you could only pick 9 out of 10 of Mozart's SQs 14-23, which one would you discard?

[Valentino]

Hah! I'd just take K. 421 and put it on the pidestal for irremovable music. There's you nine.  0:)

[Gaspard de la nuit]

1. Béla Bartók - String Quartet No. 5
2. Henri Dutilleux - Ainsi la nuit
3. Alban Berg - Lyric Suite
4. Franz Schubert - Death and the Maiden Quartet
5. Maurice Ravel - String Quartet
6. Ludwig van Beethoven - Große Fuge
7. George Crumb - Black Angels
8. Ruth Crawford Seeger - String Quartet
9. Igor Stravinsky - Three Pieces for String Quartet

[Lethevich]

Great picks, Gaspard (and welcome to the forum) - I never thought I'd find anyone who liked the Stravinsky enough to place in a top 9, but they're super little pieces.

[mc ukrneal]

1. Béla Bartók - String Quartet No. 5
2. Henri Dutilleux - Ainsi la nuit
3. Alban Berg - Lyric Suite
4. Franz Schubert - Death and the Maiden Quartet
5. Maurice Ravel - String Quartet
6. Ludwig van Beethoven - Große Fuge
7. George Crumb - Black Angels
8. Ruth Crawford Seeger - String Quartet
9. Igor Stravinsky - Three Pieces for String Quartet

Whoa! That is a heck of a first post (welcome)! I never even heard of #7 and #8. Anything you can say about these?

[Gaspard de la nuit]

Thanks for the warm welcome!  To asnwer you question:

I admit the Ruth Crawford Seeger one is a little strange, she's kind of like an American alternative to Webern, but I've been listening to it a lot lately and I'm starting to really like it.  It was either hers or the equally great (and equally underrated) Mosaic Quartet by Henry Cowell.

Black Angels is a classic and I think it was even mentioned by someone else just a few posts ago.  It's by George Crumb so it's heavy on the extended techniques.  There's a lot of extra instruments too like flute, wine glasses, maracas, etc. but all done by the string players so it's still a quartet.  It's supposed to be influenced by Vietnam but I don't hear it.  It sounds more like Hell or a nightmare to me.

[starrynight]

The Große Fuge for me is part of Op130.

[Octo_Russ]

1 Beethoven 7
2 Schubert 14
3 Ravel
4 Brahms 1
5 Dvorak 12
6 Tchaikovsky 1
7 Szymanowski 2
8 Debussy
9 Shostakovich 8