I just can't enjoy this. But if you do, which performance helped you to enjoy? What's wrong with me?
I can listen to Schubert's big D840 piano sonata. I can listen to the 9th symphony even. And Winterreise.
I mean, I can listen to Feldman.
I don't think it's "worse" than slowish performances of the quintet, or the sonatas D 894 or 960 with repeat. All of them get a bit too long but the quartet is not the "worst" case for me. I also think the original? reconstructed almost 20 min finale of the E flat major trio is too long.
Just listen to fast performances without repeat. The Busch and Budapest both get in under 13:30.
I love it! Heavenly length, as Schumann aptly described late Schubert as. Makes the 15th Quartet one of the Twin Peaks of the string quartet repertoire along with the similarly-length Beethoven Quartet 13 (w/Grosse Fuge as sixth movement finale)
Quote from: Jo498 on May 17, 2024, 11:53:42 AMJust listen to fast performances without repeat. The Busch and Budapest both get in under 13:30.
That's cheating.
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiNzkyNDU4MC4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTAwfSwid2VicCI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0Ijoid2VicCJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE0MzM5NDMzMjh9)
I admit I'm a Hagen fan - this D887 is impeccable and one thing I learned from it is that if you're going to make sense of that first movement with repeats you need to be real masters at dynamic control. Hagen are as usual impeccable - tight incisive rhythms as well as really hushed quiet passages. 20.46 in the first movement.
Most recordings seem to skip the repeat and bring the first movement in at about 14-16 minutes.
The Hungarian Quartet in the EMI Schubert Edition box brings it in at 12:53.
The repeat takers seem to be younger modern quartets like the Diogenes, Doric and Stradavari Quartets.
Quote from: Daverz on May 17, 2024, 04:16:11 PMThe repeat takers seem to be younger modern quartets like the Diogenes, Doric and Stradavari Quartets.
Kolich, Melos and Italiano took the first movement repeats, as did the Lindsays.
Fitzwilliam Quartet performs the first movement in 22:35.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/rc/4s/batt213764src_600.jpg)
D887 is Schubert's supreme chamber music masterpiece. I have adored it since the first time I heard it. Most versions I've heard include the repeat. Something critical seems missing if there is no repeat, just like with the first movement of D960. The opening movement can sound too slow and too long, but that's down to ensemble (eg, the Aviv Quartet at ~24'.)
The best are the Czechs:
(https://i.discogs.com/yJrCthW64Xfm61PgCg8JdQvptO_vD5K2UVDtOHHUzV0/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:593/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE0MTQy/ODE5LTE1NjkxNTMx/NTgtMjI3Mi5qcGVn.jpeg)
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2222763268_65)
The Italiano account nails it for me. The first movement repeat is essential in my opinion, but I can live with a good performance without it.
Quote from: Leo K. on May 18, 2024, 08:46:32 AMThe Italiano account nails it for me. The first movement repeat is essential in my opinion, but I can live with a good performance without it.
I like that one very much. I appreciate that it's not so aggressively and bombastically driving forward, that the contrasts are not symphonic and melodramatic, and especially that it seems to capture a side of the music which has caught my imagination, described here in a memorable phrase by Lukeottevanger in 2007: desperate beauty
Quote from: lukeottevanger on May 06, 2007, 02:00:18 PMI was going to recommend the Busch too, but I see I'm not the first!
Honestly, this is one of Schubert's most incredible works, and I don't think it has been served well in recordings. The first movement is so difficult for the first violin to play with the serene sublimity it deserves - those soaring triplets catch so many out; the last movement only reveals itself as the extraordinary ahead-of-its-time conception it is (rather than a fairly tedious jog-along in 6/8) in very rare performances. The Busch are the only Quartet I've heard manage it from start to finish (their inner movements are better than any others I've heard too), though I won't know as many recordings as many here will.
A memorable phrase I once read re. this work (the slow movement specifically): 'alarming beauty'. I think this is just right; I'd also modify it to 'desperate beauty' - clinging on to beauty right at the edge of the abyss. That's how this extraordinary piece strikes me, though I'm not trying to link this impression to its place in Schubert's biography.
I've got some others lined up - an unreleased concert from Diotima Quartet and Accardo Quartet. I've also ordered the recording Kremer made with his friends (Kashkashian et al.)
I've started to check out
@Todd's suggestions, so thanks for that. So far I think that Panocha is rather interesting - Prazak is kind of what I'm not looking for really, not my cup of tea. Too strong, forceful.
Quoted for something I wrote 17 years ago! And it wasn't rubbish! That feels good! 8)
The Kremer is the most "leaden" I have heard but I recall that I found it fascinating although I'd prefer a faster tempo.
I used to like the piece even more than the string quintet but I know think that the quintet is superior after the first movement, especially in mvmts. 3 and 4. The "tarantella of death" finale works IMO better in the d minor quartet.
Nevertheless, it's still my next favorite instrumental Schubert piece and I prefer it to the d minor qt, the C major symphony, the trios and the late piano sonatas.
Well, I've found one which I think is very special - Belcea. There's a fragility, vulnerability, about it which I find touching. Maybe it's kind of tortured Brit mode in a string quartet.
Quote from: Jo498 on May 18, 2024, 09:51:44 AMThe Kremer is the most "leaden" I have heard but I recall that I found it fascinating although I'd prefer a faster tempo.
Excellent. I was hoping for exactly that after their DSCH 15.
Quote from: Luke on May 18, 2024, 09:49:39 AMQuoted for something I wrote 17 years ago! And it wasn't rubbish! That feels good! 8)
clinging on to beauty right at the edge of the abyss -- that's what we're doing here.
Quote from: Mandryka on May 18, 2024, 01:18:07 PMWell, I've found one which I think is very special - Belcea. There's a fragility, vulnerability, about it which I find touching. Maybe it's kind of tortured Brit mode in a string quartet.
And Belcea sounds amazing to me this morning too - that's twice, so it's now great, objectively speaking.
I plan on listening to Prazak this afternoon which should be in my big box.
The real question is does anyone like Dvořák's big 3rd quartet in D major? I haven't heard it.
Quote from: vers la flamme on May 19, 2024, 08:05:09 AMThe real question is does anyone like Dvořák's big 3rd quartet in D major? I haven't heard it.
How strange - I put it in the CD drawer about an hour ago ready to play later. I'll report back...
Quote from: Luke on May 19, 2024, 10:14:09 AMHow strange - I put it in the CD drawer about an hour ago ready to play later. I'll report back...
Do report back. I don't have a copy of it. But I'm going to listen to the G major Schubert Quartet shortly, as I can't remember what I think of it.
Quote from: vers la flamme on May 19, 2024, 08:05:09 AMThe real question is does anyone like Dvořák's big 3rd quartet in D major? I haven't heard it.
Quote from: Luke on May 19, 2024, 10:14:09 AMHow strange - I put it in the CD drawer about an hour ago ready to play later. I'll report back...
God, Fate, The Universe, or whatever you might want to call it, seems to want you to hear that
Dvorak quartet today!
Why? Nobody yet knows, perhaps nobody
can know! But this "coincidence" seems outrageously uncoincidental! ;)
I will join later with my thoughts on both the
Schubert and now the
Dvorak. However, for now...an off-topic anecdote.
Recently I underwent a skin cancer operation on my scalp (not malignant). A complicated stitching and stretching of the skin were involved to cover the extraction.
A day later I was back in the dermatologist's office for a post-operation check-up and bandage change. The nurse did her best to press down on every sore spot possible and thereby aggravate every nerve ending possible.
Aching and feeling halfway angry and sorry for myself, I went down to the main entrance of the building, which has many other offices of various kinds, and immediately caught sight of a poor woman of advanced age with a massively, monstrously disfigured face, either from Proteus syndrome (Elephant-Man Disease) or neurofibromatosis.
I felt quite properly chastised and smacked in the chops by God for complaining about my basically invisible and temporary wound, while that poor woman has suffered decades with something unimaginable! 😇
Was her appearance a coincidence? Of course, one might expect to see disfigured people by a dermatologist's office, but her disease is fantastically rare (fewer than 300 people with the disease have ever appeared in medical literature).
Too many such coincidences have appeared in my life for me to believe that they were random events without meaning. 😇
And now...back to
Schubert and his Quartet! 8)
Quote from: vers la flamme on May 19, 2024, 10:20:45 AMDo report back. I don't have a copy of it. But I'm going to listen to the G major Schubert Quartet shortly, as I can't remember what I think of it.
One of the greatest string quartets ever written! I enjoyed my relisten with Prazak. They deliver.
My favorite Schubert chamber works remain the string quintet and piano trio #2.
Quote from: DavidW on May 19, 2024, 12:07:12 PMOne of the greatest string quartets ever written! I enjoyed my relisten with Prazak. They deliver.
My favorite Schubert chamber works remain the string quintet and piano trio #2.
Excellent choices.
Quote from: Jo498 on May 18, 2024, 09:51:44 AMThe Kremer is the most "leaden" I have heard but I recall that I found it fascinating although I'd prefer a faster tempo.
I don't find it leaden at all! But then I am a Kremer fan.
However, my big discovery in this binge of D887 performances, Belcea, makes Kremer sound a bit flat, lacking relief. Maybe there's a way to classify things here - from symphonic storm and stress at one extreme of the spectrum, and sweet and faux-naive lyricism at the other.
Maybe I was using the attribute incorrectly. I meant some combination of slow, serious, bleak.
(Some people like the Tatrai Qt Schubert quintet (I think from the 1970s, on hungaroton but also some Western labels, it's the same recording, AFAIK) that is also very bleak although it's only slow in the scherzo, I don't think it's very good. The Kremer D 887 works much better.)
Kremer also did the slowest and bleakest Brahms sonatas (but this was probably Afanassiev's influence - he would not have played like that with Argerich) and Mozart string trio (of course not as extreme here but considering the piece also quite serious).
Notes from the Tetzlaff Quartet recording
"when I played the piece for the first time, it completely knocked me over, the fact that major and minor can be allowed to crash into each other so violently within the smallest space. Every major is immediately destroyed with a minor chord, and every minor can immediately be transformed into a major chord and as a result perhaps become even more painful or bitterer. "
. . .
"When one creates such a quartet in which nothing is left of the conventions or of this assurance that there are certain limits within which one as an artist or a human being operates, knowing that he then will not go over the edge – when one completely breaks through this, I could imagine that one is so horrified of oneself that one practically has to compose such a conclusion. To say: I've just said all of that, but life of course goes on anyway. Now it's over. And a smile lingers after this struggling: OK, so that's what it means to be human. But an angel might perhaps laugh at it. That is how I imagine it."
I love this quartet. I've been listening to the Quartetto Italino version for the last 40 years, and it suits me fine.
Takacs 2024 - something interesting's going on there. Delicate, introspective. It may join Belcea in the top tier. It looks like this
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiOTYwOTQzNS4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTAwfSwid2VicCI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0Ijoid2VicCJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE3MTc0NzI0OTB9)
Quote from: Mandryka on November 07, 2024, 01:55:14 PMTakacs 2024 - something interesting's going on there. Delicate, introspective. It may join Belcea in the top tier. It looks like this
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiOTYwOTQzNS4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTAwfSwid2VicCI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0Ijoid2VicCJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE3MTc0NzI0OTB9)
I may have to revisit this as I felt the recorded sound was too far away - perhaps I was wrong, as this is getting high praise wherever I go, haha