Are we living in the golden age of the string quartet?

[Mandryka]

Another quartet that I find shockingly fresh with respect to new timbres is Kagel's first quartet, but it was composed just outside of the "last 50 years" mark.

Yes, and the second,  and I bet that Holliger was aware of them when he wore his first quartet, thanks for mentioning them.

[Scion7]

As a music fan, I say absolutely YES! The best stuff for string quartet has been written in the last 100 years IMO

Sorry, the late Beethoven quartets remain unsurpassed.  Which is natural, as he was one of the two greatest composers in history (along with Bach.)

[Karl Henning]

Please name three mediocrities in my list, then please name three mediocrities in nathanb's list and then please explain me why and how the latter are any better than the former. Oh, but there aren't any mediocrities writing today, really; all mediocre music was already written, years ago.

And thank you for agreeing that Oh, but everyone gets prizes! is . . . problematic.

[Karl Henning]

Sorry, the late Beethoven quartets remain unsurpassed.

See "Golden Age" & "nostalgia," above.

[Ken B]

See "Golden Age" & "nostalgia," above.

Nostalgia?
Scion7, pining for his lost youth, circa 1823?

[Sergeant Rock]

Nostalgia?
Scion7, pining for his lost youth, circa 1823?

Those were the days, my friend...we thought they'd never end

...and then Stockhausen hired a chopper 


Sarge

[Florestan]

Nostalgia?
Scion7, pining for his lost youth, circa 1823?

Judging by his avatar, he's rather nostalgic for Greater Hungary. 

[Florestan]

Thanks for the correction.  I am relieved  0:)

You know me well enough, you shouldn't have worried in the first place. 

And thank you for agreeing that Oh, but everyone gets prizes! is . . . problematic.

More problematic is the very idea of getting prizes. Competitions are for horses, not for artists. 

[Ken B]

More problematic is the very idea of getting prizes. Competitions are for horses, not for artists. 

First Prize, for Andrei!

[Todd]

Competitions are for horses, not for artists

Some thoroughbreds:

[Ken B]

Todd makes a good point elegantly. Time is limited. We need ways to identify and advance the particularly talented or adept. Competitions are one of the tools we use to do that. Prizes aren't a final answer, but that doesn't make them useless.

[Florestan]

Todd makes a good point elegantly. Time is limited. We need ways to identify and advance the particularly talented or adept. Competitions are one of the tools we use to do that. Prizes aren't a final answer, but that doesn't make them useless.

I'm sure Bartok did not have such competitions in mind.

[Turner]

I'm sure Bartok did not have such competitions in mind.

Bartok had constant economical problems. Prizes are usually accompanied by money. His Opus 1 Rhapsody was submitted to the Anton Rubinstein Prize Competition in Paris in 1905, but won nothing.

He  entered his 3rd Quartet for a prize in Philadelphia. It had been composed in Budapest, but the prize earned him $3000, which helped him financially through the 1930s.

[starrynight]

Arditti Quartet
JACK Quartet
Quatuor Diotima
Pellegrini-Quartett
Kairos-Quartett
Maggini Quartet
Hagen Quartet
Pacifica Quartet
Juilliard Quartet
Quartet-Lab
Jasper Quartet
Spektral Quartet
Keller Quartet
Minguet Quartet
Quartetto Prometeo

Off the top of my head.

How do we compare them to the performers of the pre-recording era?  Another problem is the further back you go the more music has been lost.  And over time with the globalisation of culture classical music has spread it's wings beyond that Western European base.  With the advent of recordings and then the wide distribution of the internet things are very different now.

So I think it's hard to compare the past to modern times, it's just a different culture.