Forgotten String Quartets
Wed, Jul 11 2012, 2:01AM
A unique eBook about unjustly neglected string quartets is available for free from:
www.forgottenstringquartets.com
Yes I wrote it :) and I'm sure there's nothing else like it. Unlike a normal book where you'd just be reading about a piece, it contains listening links to YouTube videos so you can hear a work right away.
It's amazing how many famous composers wrote quartets which are inexplicably neglected (eg. Schubert's 8th string quartet, as beautiful as the Trout Quintet).
But of course there are unsung composers like Norbert Burgmüller, whom Schumann ranked alongside Schubert as a genius robbed from us by early death.
Enjoy!
Wed, Jul 11 2012, 8:45PM
#2
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Hi Lyle,
Thanks for the link. It looks interesting and I shall look at it when I have more time. I agree Parla, that there is great music and less great stuff, but I am firmly of the belief that each of us should explore as much as we can to find out what is great and what is not. A youtube link can save the cost of an "interesting but ultimately uncompelling" CD.
Each of us should choose our own favoured music on the basis of our own responses.
Best wishes,
Wed, Jul 11 2012, 10:26PM
#3
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Hi Lyle!
What a nice thing for you to do! I look forward to checking it out.
And like Phlogistan, I think that each of us should follow our own inclinations and *paths in our musical explorations. Personally, I enjoy doing a mixture of checking out the well-known pieces but with frequent dips into lessor known pieces or perhaps exploring certain genres for awhile or certain countries or eras, etc. So many ways to have fun and to learn and grow! :-)
*Though I'm not at all trying to dismiss a formal musical education! I wish that I had had that too.
Happy listening!
Petra
Thu, Jul 12 2012, 12:56PM
#4
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Hello Lyle. Thanks for that I will have a good look over the next couple of days. There is so much good music consigned to library shelves as it were, and there have been some interesting threads on forgotten masterpieces and most recently on Requiem settings. Useful to bring your work to the attention of the forum. Must have taken quite a bit of research!
Mark
Fri, Jul 13 2012, 10:14PM
#5
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Speaking of "forgotten String Quartets" of our time, I guess I have to mention the very interesting, solid and strong in inspiration and execution String Quartets of David Matthews. Toccata Classics has just now released the Vol.2 of the series. Try them, since they risk to be unjustly "forgotten", before they are simply known to the public!
In the late Romantic era and from the already neglected Spain, Naxos revealed the beauty and creativity of a completely forgotten composer, namely Andres Isasi, and the first volume (out of three) of his complete cycle of String Quartets. A substantial figure of quite promising music.
Parla
Sat, Jul 14 2012, 9:25AM
#6
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Lylechan, I hope your book includes the early quartets of Dvorak. One of them lasts well over an hour, including a 25-minute first movement.
Sat, Jul 14 2012, 11:12AM
#7
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Lylechan, I hope your book includes the early quartets of Dvorak. One of them lasts well over an hour, including a 25-minute first movement.
Probably why it is neglected.
Sat, Jul 14 2012, 12:30PM
#8
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Excellent but neglected quartets (and both english) are:
Maconchy string quartet no.7-this is true english music. Has a lovely scherzo too.
Robert Simpson quartet no. 7-mysterious depths of space stuff
Both on youtube-check them out.
Sun, Jul 15 2012, 1:21AM
#9
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Lylechan, I hope your book includes the early quartets of Dvorak. One of them lasts well over an hour, including a 25-minute first movement.
Probably why it is neglected.
Exactly.
Sun, Jul 15 2012, 11:20PM
#10
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Reger also composed some gargantuan String Quartets with huge movements, somehow modeled after Beethoven's Late ones, but his writing fails to communicate either something superb in creativity and inventiveness or sublime in expression.
On the other side of the same coin, some great composers wrote huge Chamber works, leaving some of the most amazing movements of extreme length but full of invention, highest emotional expression and utmost musicianship, like Schubert's last String Quartet in G (the First movement lasts, in some stretched interpretations, up to 24 minutes, while the Second can reach another 12-13 minutes), Schubert's String Quintet in C (again, the First movement can reach the 21-23 minutes and the Second up to 15 minutes too) and Beethoven's op.132 in a minor (where the slow movement may reach up to 19 minutes but constitutes the most sublime piece Beethoven ever wrote).
So, size matters both ways.
Parla
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 4:39PM
#11
Superb...Sublime.
"Superb in creativity and inventiveness or sublime in expression" - pretty tough on a quartet composer to demand that as the price of letting him or her write what he or she wants to. I feel a good deal of sympathy for the John Cages of this world reading that. Not to mention a pianist like Bartok. Surely most of the good quartets are written for players to play, and for us to overhear. Perhaps the quartet written for concergoers to hear rather than for players to play might be more at risk of getting forgotten. Even some of those I find I don't forget easily. Tippett 3 is an example. What do folk think of the Cesar Franck Quartet these days?
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 11:56PM
#12
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Superb, sublime, magnificent the String Quartet by Franck, Peter. Try also his Piano Quintet, another glorious work of the highest order.
Parla
Tue, Jul 24 2012, 8:44AM
#13
RE: Forgotten String Quartets
Yes, I do actually know the Piano Quintet. It's certainly a card-carrying masterpiece. But it's hard to catch a performance of the Quartet - perhaps it always was. If a piece is hardly ever played in public, I'd have thought that made it likely to fall into the category of "forgotten". There was a time, in the late 1940s, when "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "I Puritani" did. "Forgotten" isn't the same as "unmasterly", surely.
Hello, Mr. Chan. As A devoted person of Chamber Music and of the String Quartet medium, I admire the thread you try to initiate. It's really bold and worthwhile to try to bring a sort of awareness of this so important genre.
However, as an avid collector of any possible CD (or SACD) of unknown (not only unduly neglected or forgotten) String Quartets and after so many years of listening experience, I can assure you I didn't find more than a handful of neglected or so String Quartets that are worthy of their famous counterparts.
You very rightly mentioned Schubert's 8th String Quartet in B flat (however, it's not wise for you to compare it with another very unique medium as the Piano Quintet with Double Bass, as the "Trout" is). It's a wonderful work, in many ways (the slow movement in g minor is a gem by itself), but I couldn't trade it for any of the last three and famous ones. Besides, from my vast experience in this field, I noticed that, while it's very fascinating exploring the Quartets of Eybler or Jadin, I will always return to Haydn's main ones, like the pivotal op. 20 or 33, to Mozart's great ones and Beethoven's (almost all of them).
One of the true revelations of the recording industry was Cesar Franck's only String Quartet. A true masterpiece. On the other hand, Bruckner's was much less than a revelation. Saint Saens' two String Quartets were a very happy discovery, while some of the Taneyev's were pretty creative.
My advice to those who have not yet explored this medium would be: try to get as much as you can from the main repertory and, then, indulge in the "neglected" ones. Not the other way round.
Parla