The Bartok quartets (& the Belcea SQ)

[Sean]

It's false complexity tailored for easy consumption by the double think crowd.

Josquin, I like the quote from Feldman re Boulez et al- 'their virtues are too easily come by', which is to say anyone with sufficient intellect, rather than artistic insight, can write in the post-tonal complex style.

[karlhenning]

Josquin, I like the quote from Feldman re Boulez et al- 'their virtues are too easily come by', which is to say any with sufficient intellect, rather than artistic insight, can write in the post-tonal complex style.

Thanks for the first genuinely humorous post of the day, Sean!

[Sean]

Todd

Can't say the same for Ferneyhough, for instance.

The early Ferneyhough quartets are serialism gone bananas- the definition of sound and fury signifying nothing.

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.

Indeed. I haven't heard the Vegh but I did buy their Beethoven cycle on CD, which provides strength and authority but is really very square and outside the idiom, even rather dry and academic.

[Sean]

By the way the Belceas don't have the full measure of the remarkable opening movement of the Fourth : those possessed demonic rhythms at the start elude them a little and they don't seem to see how the tension beforehand is setting them up. Must be a bastard to play though!!