A series made up primarily of the string quartet repertoire, with other string and/or chamber works included here and there. There’s so much of this stuff that’s so worthy of attention, and it would take too long to get through in the main mid-week series, so here we are.
performed by Tamás Vásáry, Thomas Brandis, Wolfram Christ and Ottomar Borwitzky, or below by Ax, Stern, Laredo, and Ma (cover image by Patrick Fischer) If you haven’t yet discovered Brahms’s chamber music, here’s a bit more for you. We’ve done a … Continue reading Brahms Piano Quartet No. 1 in Gm, op. 25
performed by the Artemis Quartet or below by the Alban Berg Quartett (cover image by Shane Stagner) Well, here we are, the final installment of the groundbreaking op. 18 quartets. Op. 18 no. 6 is the only one of the … Continue reading Beethoven String Quartet no. 6 in B flat, op. 18, no. 6
performed by the Kontra Quartet (unfortunately there isn’t a recording on YouTube, but go check out all of Holmboe’s quartets on Spotify) (cover image by Trần Anh Tuấn) Covering this second quartet today means we’re 10% of the way through his twenty … Continue reading Holmboe String Quartet no. 2, op. 47
performed by the Artemis Quartet, or below by the Alban Berg Quartett (cover image by Andreea Chidu) We’re finally nearing the end of Beethoven’s op. 18 quartets that he published in 1801. This fifth quartet in the series of six … Continue reading Beethoven String Quartet no. 5 in A, op. 18, no. 5
performed by Steven Isserlis, or below by Anner Bylsma (cover image by Ashley Knedler) We’ve finally made our way around to another installment of Bach’s cello suites. I remember nearly two years ago now when I began the weekend chamber … Continue reading Bach Cello Suite no. 5 in Cm, BWV 1011
performed by Boris Berman and the Vermeer Quartet, or as below (with the composer’s wife at the piano) I had to take what I wrote from imaginary spaces defined in terms of sound and put it into the psychological space … Continue reading Schnittke Quintet for Piano and Strings
performed by the Delmé Quartet (cover image by Cassie Boca) We will in due course get to the composer’s fourth, fifth, and sixth quartets, which are their own trilogy with a spiritual connection to Beethoven’s three Razumovsky quartets. This third … Continue reading Simpson String Quartet no. 3
performed by the Delmé Quartet (cover image by Larm Rmah) As the first and really core composer behind the new Editor’s Choice series, we’ll have a few articles on Simpson’s music, doing a bit of catching up with his earlier stuff since … Continue reading Simpson String Quartet no. 2
performed by the Artemis Quartet (an excerpt of their performance there), or below by the Cleveland Quartet (cover image by Mona Eendra) It’s been a while since we’ve seen any of the opus 18 string quartets. We’ve only gotten through half … Continue reading Beethoven String Quartet no. 4 in Cm, op. 18 no. 4
performed by the Zurich String Trio, or below by the Grumiaux Trio (cover image by Ivan Jevtic) As I mentioned in an article earlier this week, we will be seeing lots of Beethoven this year. We’ll be seeing a dozen pieces from … Continue reading Beethoven String Trio in Cm, op. 9 no. 3
performed by the Tempera Quartet (cover image by Kristopher Kinsinger) I feel that quartets are in a way the genre in which I am most at home. I use the instruments rather mildly, without any great technical finesse. Nordgren, from … Continue reading Pehr Henrik Nordgren: String Quartet no. 10
performed by the Cikada String Quartet, or as below You were not allowed to have pulse, or tonally oriented harmonies, or melodies. I don’t want to write music through negations. Everything is permissible as long as it’s done in good taste. … Continue reading Kaija Saariaho: Nymphéa
performed by the Lahti Chamber Ensemble (cover image by Hao Wang) Today’s piece, also without a YouTube video, dates from 1969, just a few years after the first string quartet, in 1965, which ended Meriläinen’s early “Dodecaphonic” period. In that article, … Continue reading Meriläinen: Metamorfora per 7
performed by the Medici String Quartet (Again, we have a piece with no YouTube video. I’ll be perfectly honest: this piece will not be many people’s cup of tea, but if you’re a lover of Webern or Schoenberg or anything … Continue reading Usko Meriläinen: String Quartet no. 1
performed by the Sibelius Academy Quartet (So this, I think, is the first time in the series that we don’t have a video available on YouTube, but it certainly won’t be the last. As it turns out, there are about a … Continue reading Joonas Kokkonen: Quintet For Piano And String Quartet, op. 5
performed by the Echnaton Trio, or below by Peter Sirotin, Violin; Michael Stepniak, Viola; Fiona Thompson, Cello (cover image by Geoffrey Datema) Today’s work is obviously a much later piece than the first symphony, with an identifiably chromatic vocabulary. Its four … Continue reading Melartin String Trio, op. 133
performed by the Voces Intimae Quartet, or below by the Copenhagen String Quartet (cover image by Hans Eiskonen) It turned out as something wonderful. The kind of thing that brings a smile to your lips at the hour of death. … Continue reading Sibelius String Quartet in Dm, op. 56 ‘Voces Intimae’
performed by Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä, violin; Tuomas Lehto, cello; Roope Gröndahl, piano (cover image by Cassie Boca) Toivo Timoteus Kuula was born on July 7, 1883 in Vaasa, on the west coast of Finland. He studied privately with Sibelius from 1906-1908, and … Continue reading Toivo Kuula: Piano Trio, op. 7
performed by the Minguet Quartett second and third/fourth movements (cover image by Steven Wang) Robert Fuchs was born on February 15, 1847 in Frauental an der Laßnitz, the youngest of 13 children. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Felix Otto … Continue reading Robert Fuchs: String Quartet no. 1 in E, op. 58
performed by the Pacifica Quartet (no video today, but go check out the album for some audio clips) (cover image by Steven Wang) Back to Blackwood. If you know Blackwood’s name from somewhere (and you’re not a contract bridge player; … Continue reading Blackwood String Quartet no. 3
performed by the Smith Quartet, or below by the Kronos Quartet (cover image by Oskar Krawczyk) Philip Glass’s third string quartet is in many ways (at least spiritually) related to the second. That work was to be incidental music for … Continue reading Glass String Quartet no. 3, ‘Mishima’
Fugue for Thought 