How To Get Into String Quartets
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- How To Get Into String Quartets:
Examples for Comparative Listening
Dvořák:
Symphony No 9 “From the New World”
String Quartet No. 12 “American”
Shostakovich:
Symphony No. 8 in C minor
Chamber Symphony in C minor Op. 110a
String Quartet No. 8 in C minor (Op. 110)
Haydn:
Symphony No. 49 in F minor “La Passione”
String Quartet in F minor, Op. 20 No. 5
Mozart:
Piano Concerto No. 15 in B flat major
String Quartet No. 17 in B flat major K. 458 “The Hunt”
Beethoven:
Symphony No. 6 in F major (“Pastoral”)
String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59 No. 1
The sensuality of Ravel’s quartet might also prove an excellent « gateway drug »… Otherwise, Beethoven’s Op. 59 no. 1 did the job for me on the very first listen, all by itself.
That was my gateway too! Quartetto Italiano.
Dear Dave. This is a brillant idea to get people into listening to chamber music. I can only support you by telling everybody to give it a try. Listening to chamber music is so rewarding. And there is much more than the quartets. A world of music in its own rights and as beautiful and stimulating as large symphonic works.
I had difficulty getting into string quartets when I first started listening to classical music and I found my way into the genre in a surprising way, and that was by watching live performances. I think the string quartet is particularly difficult for new classical listeners because of the relative homogeneity of the textures. It can be difficult to tell the difference between first and second violin, or between the violins and viola in general (the cello is usually identifiable by how low it goes). When you watch a string quartet playing live, though, it's much easier to keep track of the individual parts, and as you get used to the genre it becomes much easier to listen to without the visual aid.
When I was learning the string quartet repertoire, I often studied the score to gain a better understand how the works are constructed. Of course it isn't obligatory to look at the score in order to enjoy the music. But, for example, if you look at the score for Beethoven's op. 131 you will understand how intricately the parts are interwoven.
20th century string quartets are a great genre to explore in some detail.
Thank you, Dave. Your pairings are amazingly well thought out. All that's missing is the proper wine with the pairings!
I love chamber music and string quartets are my favourites......but, they have to be done by very competent musicians and be well recorded. For me the violin is a very tricky instrument and only very well played it sounds good to me. In an orchestra the sheer number of strings create a common sound but in a string quartet you can hear every instrument separate. I have several recordings of the great string quartet but some I can't listen to because of the shrillness of the violins, sometimes caused by the artist and sometimes by the low quality recording.
I have the same problem with artificially bright violins in digitally recorded chamber music and is one reason I returned to vinyl.
I had an old CD collection from the 90s consisting mostly of rock and some classical. I bought a setup and started researching classical music when I stumbled on your channel. I was only interested in orchestra at the time because I thought chamber music sounded weak. I wanted Tchaikovsky's canons and Saint Saen's organ blasting and rumbling me away. After a few weeks starting exploring pastoral works and started throwing my CDs into liquor boxes I got from a Chinese restaurant. Started organizing them by orchestral works and chamber music. Now I look at these and my chamber collection is twice as big as the orchestra.
Remarkable!
A different audiophile perspective is that even with a large and expensive hi-fi system large scale orchestral recordings will be a watered down copy of the real thing. Chamber music is much easier to reproduce in a truly realistic way. You just have to remember that these were designed to be listened to in a "chamber", at close quarters. So turn the volume up accordingly. Weak and lacking in dynamics they are not.
The Dvorak American Quartet and the Smetana Quartet #1 (From My Life) are very good introductions to string quartets.
You start to appreciate chamber music when passing 50. I can again reccommend Dave's earlier suggestion of the British String Quartets by the Maggini Quartet on NAXOS. These are very diverse, ranging from late-romantic to modernistic.
Yes this worked for me. I have a predilection for Schubert's music, the Trout for example. Then I played the string quartet "Death and the Maiden" and thoroughly got into this string quartet
For me it was Fauré's sublime chamber music. In particular the Piano Quintets. Worked backward and before I knew it I was listening to Schubert's and Schumann's string quartets.
I like to drive a car with quartet music , there's no problem with adjusting the volume button. With symphonic music , there's a volume problem with loud music.
Very true.
Same here. I recently purchased the big Emerson box from Decca and have been working my way through them during my commute.
Try listening at night when the kids are sleeping :)
What a great video, thank you! I hope you do more of these, with other forms of chamber music.
Perhaps this will give rise to: reference recordings: quartets
String quartets are great for fans of small band jazz. And anyone that likes classical style symphonies might find a good entryway in the "Fifths" quartet of Haydn.
I find chamber music easier to get into than orchestral music, because typically they are shorter works and the voices are easier to follow.
Maybe I have a bit of attention deficit going on, or that I'm just impatient, but I'm much more reticent of orchestral/symphonic music
than with chamber music. The list of composers whose symphonies I listen to regularly are; Sibelius, Shostakovich and Mahler. That's it. I do try to get into other symphonists, but I find it harder, like I have to force myself to keep listening. The three I mentioned I have no problem with, they grab and hold my attention straight away. I don't know why and I don't need to, unless that knowledge leads me to others.
On the otherhand I don't find all chamber music easy to get into either, but I can more easily determine whether it's "promising" or not to persist. Like Hindemiths SQ's for example, it took a few hearings before I got into them, but I sensed on first hearing that I would.
I made a helpful discovery thanks to your videos. I never really got into Beethoven. OK, I sort of liked his pastoral and no7, some concertos, but I rarely feel the urge to dig them out and listen. Then I watched your video on the Suk Trio recording of his piano trios, I bought the box and was blown away. Suddenly Beethoven made sense, he had a sense of humour, that extraordinary creative wit was laid bare and I was totally enchanted. I believe that for some of us, it's actually better to start with the chamber music, it's just easier to follow and more direct.
As you point out, this snobby BS about intellectual stuff just gets in the way. I suggest our auditory brains are not all wired up the same and that some folk might quite naturally find chamber music easier to engage with, in the same way some can roll their tongues and others can't.
I have come to love Piano Trios, piano Quartets and piano quintets. I have plenty of strong Quartets, too.
I love Beethoven’s and Dvorak’s piano trios. Brahms has some good ones, especially the first one.
This is a brilliant idea. It took me a long time to appreciate chamber music. I think this would have helped me to see the value of string quartets earlier.
Ha. I find orchestral music much harder to receive than chamber works mostly because the bombast inherent in most symphonies. String quartets are infinitely more intriguing (and inviting) to these ears. I'll never understand "getting into" any music. Shut up and listen. Either you dig it or you don't! Thanks, Dave. 😁
I wish Haydn had left us a Seven Last Words for kazoo choir... I started at 17 with... The American! And no. 13, which was, like a B-side - impenetrable until I realised how much better it was!
After that (played lustily by the Lindsays) , it took me all my student determination to get to know my Haydn op. 76 ('Bring me sunrise! Bring me fifths!' ) I still can't get Shostakovich. Mozart's G-minor quintet means, sadly, who cares about his other works for strings, ditto Mendelssohn (the octet's fault), and, eventually I was ready, age 35, for Beethoven.
Great essay, Dave, thanks!
What a remarkable teacher you are. Bravo. 12:37
Starting to listen to quartets with Dvorák is a great idea. Best gateway drug in classical music!
Dvorák wrote a large amount of chamber music, and most of them are real masterpieces. Whether it is string quartets (14 in all), Cypresses, piano quintets, string quintets and sextet, piano trios, or the Terzetto, you’ll hear great and accessible music.
The first time I heard a string quartet made me regret I was a brass player. I felt left out.
Absolutely brilliant talk! My first experience was Mozart's D minor K. 421, still my fave, then Bartok's No 4 which I liked as a teenager because of the anarchic pizzicato movement. Also recommend Debussy and Ravel for people put off by the seemingly 'academic' nature of classical period music.
Agree about the Bartok, no 4 is extraordinary for the pizzicato movement you mention, all six of the Bartok String Quartets are my favourite of the genre.
Another great vid! Thank you.
Chamber music has one huge advantage over orchestral music, one that helped not just lower but eliminate the threshold for me. It naturally fits within the average room people listen in - most usually a living room. A full orchestra feels out of place there, and seems completely overblown. Chamber ensembles come across as a natural presence. None of this applies when listening with headphones, clearly.
A second remark I'd like to make is that, especially for listeners just starting out, small string ensembles need help from the recording (or rather: the listener does). It is rather easy for recordings to sound gloopy, tangled, messy even. Being able to pinpoint which instrument does what, how melody and accompaniment float from instrument to instrument, is part of the joy, and that is where recordings need to be clear and well defined. For this reason, those new to string quartets should avoid mono recordings in the beginning. Look out for labels famed for their recording quality (with enembles to match, of course!) to get used to the music and get the most out of it.
There are many fine examples, so this is just one for starters: MDG with the Leipziger String Quartet. A fine group, on a label that does chamber music second to none.
Love the chat concept of the pairings. A winner!!
This is so brilliant and welcoming, thank you!
Best I can think of is- go to see/hear live in person! Chamber music in smaller halls, often better audiences, more intimate, and very powerful!
Even better, go hear it in someone's living room. You'd be amazed at the dynamic range.
And another thing....music used in feature films can make a convert of you. Kubrick was the master of this, and "Barry Lyndon" did it for me with the Schubert Trio No 2 (2nd movement)
Stellar suggestions, pointing out that great music is found in all sizes of performance, from solo to large orchestra.
Hi Dave! Loved the idea to get people into chamber music via pairings. For me, this would have been Schubert - although not in the same key, the Unfinished and Death and the Maiden quartet do cover a similar sound and emotional scape. And got me hooked.
I have this same problem! I like a few chamber pieces but generally find the genre pretty difficult. Thanks for this video, I'm definitely going to try some of these suggestions!
Based on another of your posts, I have started listening to all 68 1/2 string quartets by Haydn. I am astonished by how totally charming and interesting and engaging these works are! I have listened to the first 4 quartets plus Op 54 (also on your recommendation). I have also started corresponding with my former collesgues, the Avalon Quartet, who are in residence at Northern Illinois University School of Music. They play Beethoven's Op 131 beautifully!
A few years ago I started attending a summer chamber music fest where local professionals put together four programs with a thoughtful variety, and this has enhanced my appreciation of chamber music 1000%. The venue is very intimate, the performers mere feet away and on the same floor; you don't have to be a musician enjoying the performers' synergy vicariously (though I am and I do) to interact with the music in a totally unpassive way. Through this concert series I've been exposed to some fascinating pieces old and new, and often I'll come home and immediately start googling recordings of the ones I liked. But if I didn't have that resource and wanted to learn appreciation for chamber music, I'd probably do something just like this. I think the key is finding whatever makes you able to locate yourself in 3D space in relation to the music; that's what turns disorientation into intimacy. After all, what's a chamber but just a room?
I haven’t heard a more satisfying string quartet than just about any of Haydn’s. Oh yeah, Dvorak’s American quartet too! I’m sure there’s a couple or more that I like.
Wonderful! Please do the same with orchestral / piano sonatas works!
That was really good. You didn't even need to mention Schubert!
My intro to chamber music was going to hear Borodin's String Quartet No 2. Not only was I captivated by the tuneful music but by the way the four players interacted with each other. I don't get that sense of intimacy with larger scale music.
To my ears String Quartets are less forgiving of poor performance and recording than larger scale works and this can be a challenge. Because of the very personal nature of Chamber Music, especially string quartets, both for composer, performers and listener, it's helpful to find a group of players you like and who interact well and who are reliable and generally well recorded. I think you mentioned liking the New Leipzig String Quartet in a previous video. They are very good and very well recorded with no tiring, over-brightness of the first violin, which can be a problem for me with some quartet recordings.
Borodin´s 2nd is possibly the only string quartet to have spawned two chart-topping popular songs from the 50s (via Kismet, the musical). ¨This is my beloved¨ and, to the great amusement of those not expecting it, ¨Baubles, Bangles & Beads¨.
I could never enjoy the Alban Berg Quartet's recordings of Beethoven's late quartets. It is a pity because they were one of the great ensembles. So I looked elsewhere.
@@stevecook8934Dave recommends Quarteto Italiano for the late quartets, which I myself have and enjoy.
@@stevecook8934 Yes, I find Alban Berg just a bit too slick and perfect to the point of detachment. Not enough sense of struggle or passion but this music is so other-worldly I'm not sure any mortals can perform them with perfection. Maybe the Italian Quartet, Lindsays and Vegh come close. It's a very personal thing with these late quartets.
@@nattyco It was the engineering that turned me off.
Great idea to couple quartets and symphonies. Quartets are wonderful but have a limitation: listening to the same sound environment for long time may be tiring, hence it is better to take them in small dosis. And prefer those quartets with more colours and aound variety, starting from Haydn.
Dear Dave, this is a great video and a wonderful idea to couple some quartets to similar other compositions by the same composer.
In that way one could also give a recommendation to opera lovers, i.e. Benjamin Britten’s third quartet attached to his last opera “Death in Venice”. When you know the story of the opera and how Britten himself was personally involved in its topic and psychological depths, when you made yourself familiar with some of the important motives and crucial moments of the opera, then it’s very interesting to see how Britten translates the operatic stuff and content into the instrumental world of a string quartet, that is also not the most easy kind of music. But it’s rewarding when you close your eyes and imagine the pictures from the opera, the gondolas rocking on the canals, Aschenbach’s pursuit of an impossible love (including the final moment of the opera’s first act when Aschenbach finally brings out the words “I love you”), his philosophical thoughts… Wonderful, a work full of wisdom and an intimate beauty. But I have to admit it might nonetheless not be a quartet to begin with, but rather for advanced listeners. I just braught it up to add a perspective to your idea of pairings, because opera lovers might have even bigger problems with the genre of string quartets, and so it might be helpful to have one that is tightly connected to an opera.
Here's another opera/quartet pairing that I think is fascinating: Verdi's Falstaff and his string quartet. The style of the music in Falstaff -- fast, light, and effervescent -- is so different from Verdi's earlier operas, it's hard to believe they're from the same composer. But if you listen to the string quartet, written many years earlier, you can hear the beginnings of that kind of music.
Thanks Dave. Thank you for this video. I have to be among those who have trouble with chamber music. I've been "into" classical music for about 40 years buts almost exclusively orchestral music. I go to Carnegie Hall every season and an occasional pilgrimage to Severance Hall. I will use your list posted today. Would you consider doing the same thing for piano sonatas?
I'll think about it, but the truth is that you can do it yourself if it works for quartets. It's the same principle. Just have confidence!
I started with the complete Beethoven & Schubert quartets & went from there. Shostakovich came next
"it's played on a viola, frankly, and that's interesting..."
🤣🤣🤣
I listen classical Music since my youthful, have more than 4000 albums, worked for EMI Classic, and I do not like operas. Some arias, choirs but not operas. At this point I am OK with it...gave up to try. I do not like symphonic poems also, in general, with few exceptions. But I love chamber music and I am just comparing 14 versions of the Harp op.74
The Harp is not a bad choice for someone trying to "get" the medium.
@@stevecook8934 I would suggest Schubert's Death and the Maiden. After his piano and string quintets.
I also have been listening to classical music my whole life but find opera’s challenging.
I recently took the plunge with Dvorak’s opera Rusalka and love it. Very lyrical and tuneful and a strong orchestral emphasis.
Maybe its the Italian ones and Wagner that frighten me away.
You have 4000 albums, but Don Giovanni and Tristan und Isolde doesn't work for you?
@@castheeuwes1085 Nope. I like some arias etc. but I do not identify with the overall drama (I am not fluent in English enough to explain better). I am used to the instrumental works dynamics like concertos, symphonies, sonatas, baroque music etc - but I do not like the drama beeing sang like in an opera.
Great idea, Dave. But what about Bartók's string quartets? I love Bartók's piano concertos, folksongs, Contrasts, Mandarin, etc etc. But the string quartets just rattle me, and I can't understand why. What's the way in??
They are more radical than most of his other music, as well as more varied in musical language. There's no easy way (and they aren't meant to be easy). I can only suggest that you start with Nos. 3 and 4 and spread out in both directions from there. You may never like them all. I still find Nos. 1 and 2 a chore.
@@DavesClassicalGuide thank you, I'll give 3 and 4 another go.
I love Bartok’s orchestral and concertos and other works, but his string quartets are very challenging still to me.
Number 4 is probably his most “popular” , but also very harsh and abrasive in parts. I do like it, especially the last movement. Very passionate.
I love Bartok’s orchestral and concertos and other works, but his string quartets are very challenging still to me.
Number 4 is probably his most “popular” , but also very harsh and abrasive in parts. I do like it, especially the last movement. Very passionate.
Please, watch Bartóks 3rd String Quartet with the Vision Quartet here on UA-cam. They play by heart and are standing during the whole performance. This allows them to be so interactive and with each other and to letting seem the music to be invented just in that moment right before our eyes, it's so fresh and so lively, you totally forget about the complexity of this music.
Your discussion of the purely musical matters distinguishing quartets from other forms is thought-provoking. The obstacle for me, though, was simply the astringent sound of the four bare instruments. Initially, they would always seem scratchy and out of tune. I have the impression this is true for many newcomers to chamber music. (Piano trio, quartets, etc. are a great way to adjust to the sound of small string groups.) I used to seek out string orchestra arrangements, but now I find them lacking in what makes a string quartet special. Intimacy, for lack of a better word.
Depends on the quartet. The Czech ensembles seldom sound as you describe.
@@DavesClassicalGuide True, it doesn't have to have been quite that bad, but it was still an adjustment for me. By the way, the most amazing tone I've ever heard live in concert was from the Pacifica Quartet. I will never forget that.
A question for the Ask Dave Section: you mention that 'in the Dvorak the keys don't matter...' and ' composers associate certain kinds of music to certain kinds of keys`. Do they do that subjectively? I have never understood this idea, the importance of the key, the difference made by composing a work in say G major or F major. Are different frames created just by composing a piece one note lower or higher? How? Why? I just don't get it.
That's a great question. Unless you have perfect pitch I can't hear how it makes any difference, other than psychologically. Maybe certain instruments sound different in different keys or maybe they can only play in certain keys. I don't know enough about it. I hope Dave can address your question.
tip #1 avoid the quartets of brahms 😅
jokes aside my way in was i guess highly idiosyncratic: Schoenbergs 2nd by the Fred Sherry quartet (Robert Craft) but maybe you can say thats not even a quartet but a lied featuring chamber tone poem or something 😅😅😅
Brahms's Quintets and Sextets are the way to go.
Almost any Bruckner scherzo has brass blasting some type of hunting horn calls.
Um, no, they don't. Only the 4th.
One of the best educational videos from Dave. I would like that I had it at hand at the times, decades ago, when I was cracking the string quartets shell. 👍👍👍👏👏👏🎉🎉🎉💯💯💯