Shostakovich Quartet 15

Started by Mandryka, December 15, 2023, 11:53:37 PM

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DavidW

Quote from: Spotted Horses on June 07, 2024, 09:35:33 AMYes, I planned to listen to it because Mandryka had described particular sonority the had achieved in that recording. I'm undecided whether to resume listening to the Fitzwilliam set, maybe try Sorrel, or even Danel.

And I'm going to spend more time with the St Petersburg Q set that I just acquired.  Fitzwilliam is one of my favs.  I sent the cd set to Gurn back in the day though (which believe it or not will sometimes listen to non-classical era music!)

It is sad that most of Fitzwilliam's set is OOP and unavailable to stream.

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darĂ¼ber muss man schweigen

DavidW

Quote from: Mandryka on June 07, 2024, 10:19:06 AMIt's all here

https://open.spotify.com/album/7LD0AYK7OK0KxCCT5NQY8U

Oh most of them unavailable though (looking at the individual tracks)... still better than nothing! 

Spotted Horses

Quote from: DavidW on June 07, 2024, 09:45:34 AMAnd I'm going to spend more time with the St Petersburg Q set that I just acquired.  Fitzwilliam is one of my favs.  I sent the cd set to Gurn back in the day though (which believe it or not will sometimes listen to non-classical era music!)

It is sad that most of Fitzwilliam's set is OOP and unavailable to stream.

The St Petersburg set is one that I sold off years ago, I recall thinking it was too grim. But I listened to the first movement of 15 and quite liked it. I have to remember that I can stream it.

Atriod

Quote from: Spotted Horses on June 07, 2024, 11:29:42 AMThe St Petersburg set is one that I sold off years ago, I recall thinking it was too grim. But I listened to the first movement of 15 and quite liked it. I have to remember that I can stream it.

St. Petersburg's Hyperion recording (do they have a Sony recording for it?) is indeed quite grim! This is one aspect that made it my favorite cycle over my previous favorite that was Borodin's first cycle (incomplete), I didn't think anything could be more black than Borodin's first cycle but then St. Petersburg came along. IIRC this was an @amw recommendation.

Iota

I think Quartet No.15 is one of the best things he ever wrote, and the first movement one of the best movements he ever wrote.
It's sustained poetry throughout. The first movement is close to a perfect expression of bleak resignation/acceptance, with endlessly changing hues occasionally coloured by faint suggestions of light. The second like hateful slashings of a once loved portrait (or perhaps always hated), intense and hard to listen to, and the way it merges into the third movement, which arrives like a wave of consolation, is completely unforgettable. Anyway, blah, blah etc.

I disliked the piece with a passion when I first heard it in my teens. A friend and I had driven twenty miles to hear it played in a church. It seemed like it had about fifteen movements, each about an hour long, and not a single moment of anything remotely likeable or interesting in it. What a philistine I was.
I'm not surprised in a way because a) I was a philistine, and b) what this music 'says' to me now would have been fairly meaningless to my seventeen-year-old self.

p.s have just been listening to the Pacifica do it, and they're great.

AnotherSpin

Quote from: Mandryka on June 04, 2024, 10:44:44 AMWell look, any piece of music where the composer himself says ""Play the first movement so that flies drop dead in mid-air and the audience leaves the hall out of sheer boredom" is only going to appeal to special people.

I'm listening to the previous recording of the Quatuor Danel right now. Indeed, something in the sound reminds me of the swirling of four half-dead flies in the July heat.

Herman

Not quite the quartet, however my GF and I have been listening a lot to DSCH's Viola Sonata lately, and loving it.
I used to find these piece unbearably gloomy, and now it doesn't bug me anymore.
We're mostly listening to the Bashmet - Richter 1985 live recording here. Bashmet's playing is simply stunning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ZGlnDW5FQ&t=1276s