The Bartok quartets (& the Belcea SQ)

[Sean]

I'm returning to these works this week in this quartet's superb interpretations- live performances on radio, but there are acclaimed recordings from last year I understand. They find both terrific balance of material across the instruments plus fine attack and venom; technically they're up to it and seem to relish really getting into and making sense of the contrapuntal thickets, almost justifying a more equally polyphonic approach.

There's a satisfying grasp of overall architecture that stays with you but intellectual insight also doesn't get in the way of the visceral. I know the works from various sources including the Lindsay and the masterly Tokyo, but the Belcea have not only the same kind of measured authority but the last degree of gusto that for some reason the Tokyos always kept in reserve.

I can criticize the Bartok quartets for their complexity being a little out of proportion to their aesthetic content but the Belcea certainly make the most of things.

[springrite]

I never thought Bartok quartet's complexity got in the way of anything. But you are right that these works can give you completely different (yet valid) views under a range of interpretations.

Are you still in Korea? What is the swimsuit all about?

[karlhenning]

I never thought Bartok quartet's complexity got in the way of anything.

Indeed, the complexity is part of their appeal, of their strength, of their integrity.

"Venom" is interesting eisogesis on Sean's part, too.

[Sean]

Yes but complexity on its own isn't enough, or then serialism would have some merit, for instance.

The Bartok quartets are close to being more very interesting music than very great music. The Fifth is probably the best in terms of music and artistic achievement; the Third and Fourth are best when you're in the mood for being hit over the head with a gold brick.

The avatar is just to mildly unsettle people.

[karlhenning]

Yes but complexity on its own isn't enough, or then serialism would have some merit, for instance.

No one is saying that complexity on its own is enough, Sean.  Complexity is not "on its own" in the Bartók quartets.

Serialism is a technique for managing pitch relations;  considered independently of music, it does not possess or lack "merit," any more than dime-store C major does.  The question of the merits of the music, depends on the actual music, not simply on whether it orbits either serialism or C major.

A pity to see you making such tattered comments, lad!

[springrite]

Yes but complexity on its own isn't enough, or then serialism would have some merit, for instance.

The Bartok quartets are close to being more very interesting music than very great music. The Fifth is probably the best in terms of music and artistic achievement; the Third and Fourth are best when you're in the mood for being hit over the head with a gold brick.

The Fourth is my favorite. 

The avatar is just to mildly unsettle people.

You'd need to post enlarged version in order to achieve that. 

[karlhenning]

The avatar is just to mildly unsettle people.

*yawn*

[Sean]

Karl, serialism's problem isn't that it's more complex than tonality, in fact I'd argue it's much less complex, it's that it exposes or foregrounds the complexity of a harmonic system, thus making it a very problematic frame for situating aesthetic thought. Tonality's complexity inheres, hidden in the background, all as the aesthetic, truth, God, the Self, the transcendent etc, is hidden. As with the modal system, composers suddenly found that things were paradoxically much richer and more interesting when they simplified and narrowed things down. (I promise not to pursue this ad nauseam.)

[DavidW]

It sounds like Sean doesn't really love the Bartok SQs, which kind of makes his opinion on different recordings irrelevant.

Sean, get a tan!  You look like you emerged from a cave with that albino white complexion.

[karlhenning]

Karl, serialism's problem isn't that it's more complex than tonality [. . . .]

All right.

It sounds like Sean doesn't really love the Bartok SQs, which kind of makes his opinion on different recordings irrelevant.

Precisamente.

And, good morning, David!

[Sean]

David, England is not a sunny country.

[DavidW]

And, good morning, David!

Good morning Karl!  Coffee and Mendelssohn's 3rd has made it a fine morning, too bad I have to spoil it by grading quizzes.

[karlhenning]

Great li'l blowfish!

Sorry about the quizzes . . . .

[Josquin des Prez]

Yes but complexity on its own isn't enough, or then serialism would have some merit, for instance.

Serialism isn't complex, it's just arbitrary wankering. It's false complexity tailored for easy consumption by the double think crowd.

[Todd]

The Fourth is my favorite.

Mine as well.  It pretty much matches up to even the best of Beethoven and Haydn.

Bartok's quartets may be "complex," but they are the most accessible complex quartets I've come across.  The first time I heard them I was hooked.  Can't say the same for Ferneyhough, for instance.

I must also say that the Belcea set is good - but not as good as, say, Gramophone, is making it out to be.  They play the music in a precise, vivacious, and intense manner, sure, but they have ended up making it sound somewhat un-Hungarian, even generalized, if you will, at least when compared to either set by the Vegh or even the latter Takacs recording.  The Emerson go even further down the path of generalizing Bartok, and with better results. 

[ChamberNut]

Mine as well.  It pretty much matches up to even the best of Beethoven and Haydn.

Make that 3 of us (ie. favorite being SQ # 4 Bartok)

[Wendell_E]

Make that 3 of us (ie. favorite being SQ # 4 Bartok)

Make that four for the 4th.

You'd need to post enlarged version in order to achieve that. 

No, that won't be necessary. 

[Josquin des Prez]

Not when used by Webern & Stravinsky.

No, and it's amusing that besides a brief initial learning curve there isn't anything particularly difficoult about Webern, no more difficoult then Bach, or Bartok.

For the record, i was just parodying myself, as usual. I don't think the theoretical system employed by a musician has any particular bearing upon the fruition of his creative energies, it's just that serialism has made "complexity" easy the same way tonality made "emotion" easy, the difference is that the first have somehow made themselves beyond criticism, probably because it's a lot more prestigious to write something that appears to be very, very smart as opposed to the innate ability to churn out decent tunes, which is something even your average pop musician can do.

[lukeottevanger]

No, and it's amusing that besides a brief initial learning curve there isn't anything particularly difficoult about Webern, no more difficoult then Bach, or Bartok.

No more than Bach, eh? Cor, what a lightweight!

For the record, i was just parodying myself, as usual.

Ah, a kind of post-modern irrationality - I see! 

I don't think the theoretical system employed by a musician has any particular bearing upon the fruition of his creative energies, it's just that serialism has made "complexity" easy the same way tonality made "emotion" easy, the difference is that the first have somehow made themselves beyond criticism.

And yet there's all these people criticising them...

[karlhenning]

No, and it's amusing that besides a brief initial learning curve there isn't anything particularly [difficult] about Webern, no more [difficult] then Bach, or Bartok.

Actually, I never found Webern "difficult-listening."  Nor do I imagine I am at all 'special' in that regard.