I've just started appreciating chamber music and I want to buy recording/s of the Beethoven String Quartets. If possible, I'd like some reasonably recent recordings in fabulous sound.
Any suggestions?
Any suggestions?
Best recording/s of the Beethoven String Quartets.
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damianjb1
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Or, I should feel free to participate because I have heard, seen, and read plenty enough from him to justify my opinion.
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Are the Emersons' performances cold? I certainly find some of their recordings dry (which may be my word for cold). I am a little disturbed when my subjective view is pigeonholed as belonging to a misguided group who have a biased and wrong impression. The same sort of criticism gets thrown at anyone who dares to dislike a Karajan recording. Maybe there are listeners out there who are just jumping on a bandwagon but I feel most of us are just saying what we do and do not like. Mostly that is what we discuss but there seem to be a few performers who if you don't like them it can only be because your mind is closed. I think I am as adventurous as anyone and only too willing to give any well-liked recording a second and third chance.
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I personally like the Emerson Quartet's Beethoven quite a lot, and can't find sympathy with describing any of it as "cold." I've met the members of the Emerson Quartet in person numerous times (but not the current cellist,) and there is no denying that they deeply love and are utterly devoted to the Beethoven quartets, as well as anything they undertake.
Not every quartet in the Emerson Beethoven set is necessarily my favorite, but I enjoy it all very much, especially both of their versions of Op. 135, as Merl mentioned above. I also really like their Op. 18s. In any case, none of it disappoints.
Not every quartet in the Emerson Beethoven set is necessarily my favorite, but I enjoy it all very much, especially both of their versions of Op. 135, as Merl mentioned above. I also really like their Op. 18s. In any case, none of it disappoints.
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·I don't know about hot vs cold, but the Emerson Quartet recordings sometimes strike me as having ensemble that is too well integrated, so that individual voices don't stand out. Both their style of performance and the engineering of their recordings may have an effect.
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Resurrecting an old thread to say I am listening to the Belcea Quartet complete string Quartet recording and quite like it.
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All opinions based on what someone hears are valid. They are impressions added to the conversation. As a performer, I can definitely say there are some conductors who want pristine presentations of the works without human vulnerability "clouding" things, whereas some conductors are exactly the opposite, where the human being behind the notes is part of the whole point, if not the point entirely. These conductors actually encourage the same vulnerability of expression that others eschew as "muddying" the pristine corporate sound. I have learned to adapt to the former group, but it is often a claustrophobic experience. I personally prefer conductors who allow for a full palette of expression that we feel as a group together without self-conscious inhibition.
For the Beethoven quartets, for example, when I think of a set that sounds as though it were created by a machine, I think of the Alban Berg. When I think of a set featuring musicians clearly feeling the music in every bar and not inhibiting themselves by aiming for perfection as the sole aim, I think of the Lindsays (the earlier comment about their being highly regarded solely for being British is nonsense). Now, you can say you've personally met the musicians and can vouch that they are fine people dedicated to their craft, etc. That doesn't change the essential point that there are different approaches with different priorities. There are people who are emotionally cold in person but whose emotions come out when they perform (composers can be like this as well) and vice versa. It's not what we think about the musicians personally. It's what we hear on the recordings.
Anyone had a chance to hear the new Ysaye Quartet's ops 130 and 131?
Before giving up completely on 11 try Skampa Quartet
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Yep, fine set, btw. They're in my updated blogs. Knorf is impressed too.
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Yes, I've listened through their whole cycle. They're outstanding! I especially appreciate such convincing performances coming from a more French/Belgian Beethoven tradition.
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And this is the crux of it. Emotional response to music belongs within the province of the listener, not something music can express (since music elicits, not expresses), nor is something that is communicated telepathically by the performers much less the composer.
I don't find the Lindsays the slightest bit emotional or expressive: their sloppiness, indiscipline, and waywardness leave me cold. I couldn't care less what they felt, as it has zero impact on what I feel listening to their disrespectfully poor execution and remarkably ugly sound.
Anyway, what musicians are mostly doing while they are performing is counting. Who is at their most emotionally present when they're busy mostly counting and concentrating hard in trying to not screw up? Obviously we're looking for a balance in sounding spontaneous but preparing carefully. But let's not pretend music is not a studied performance art.
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No, false, wrong. Absolutely disagree. We can absolutely tell what the performers are doing, beyond just notes, rhythms, etc. Just like in deciphering tone in speech. And likewise the performers can impart an emotion in their playing. It is not just randomness. Some performers are oblivious to what they are imparting on an emotional level, and you can tell when that is the case as well.
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Honestly, you couldn't be more wrong about this. You might as well believe in ESP and fortune tellers.
interesting idea.
How would you answer to this? What would be the benefits for all the agents in the example below for adapting your view? What are your selling points?
You have been consistently vocal about your view. You are a very smart and educated person so I am asking you to provide more argumentation to the table than the famous Stravinsky quote.
One could also boldly claim that there is no such a thing as LOVE on planet earth because you cannot prove it. The concept of love is crucial to human culture and psychology as a species — and that is a FACT.
To focus things, I think heart of the matter is this question. Is there something which can only be explained by attributing to the sounds of a piece of music the capacity to express psychological states? Or is all this talk of feelings expressed etc just a disposable shorthand for something physical?How would you answer to this? What would be the benefits for all the agents in the example below for adapting your view? What are your selling points?
You have been consistently vocal about your view. You are a very smart and educated person so I am asking you to provide more argumentation to the table than the famous Stravinsky quote.
One could also boldly claim that there is no such a thing as LOVE on planet earth because you cannot prove it. The concept of love is crucial to human culture and psychology as a species — and that is a FACT.
For an analogous example, we do not need the concept of colours to explain the world - we can do it all with wavelengths and properties of the eye and brain. Attributing colours to objects is a useful dispensable ontological fiction.
(Too philosophical? If so, sorry, but this is philosophy!)
That is an excellent example. We will never know how other people experience colours. The world can be explained without talking about the colours. We could just calculate the wavelengths.
Nevertheless it should be acknowledged that people do experience colours and that is a fact. It is also a fact that many people, the majority I would say, do attach emotions and the dimension of expression to music.
These things do exist.
Shostakovich, Bruckner, Dvořák, Bacewicz, Franck and Classical Guitar Music
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After almost completing my first traversal through the Alban Berg Quartett performances, they most definitely don't sound machine or mechanical to me. Very happy to have it alongside the Quartetto Italiano and Takacs sets.
This is the classic paper on the subject, at least in the Anglo-american tradition -- Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?"
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Wasn’t it Klemperer who described Szell as a machine, “but a very good machine!”
Their recordings are very clean, disciplined and virtuosic, but I definitely feel the emotions are reined in and the phrasing is very straightforward as opposed to fluctuating and malleable. Of course there is always the “let the music speak for itself” argument, and I’m not going to deny the beauty and technical impressiveness of the playing. But I don’t hear much interpretation going on. It comes across to me as a dry “just the facts” approach.
But I’m sure there are many others who hear the Lindsays as exaggerating the emotions and the ABQ as just right.
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