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In Reply to: RE: Or ... posted by rbolaw on November 12, 2016 at 18:01:55
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I've certainly heard a number of good string quartets in person over the years, including the Brentano, the Pacifica, the Emerson, the Tokyo, the Cleveland, the New Hungarian, the Guarneri and the Amadeus, to name a few, (as well as the Juilliard itself) many of whom played Bartok.
The Bretanos are very nice people I've had the pleasure of meeting personally. If you saw the recent movie A Late Quartet, they are the ones actually doing the playing, and Brentano cellist Nina Lee is the cellist you see replacing Christopher Walken's character at the end of the movie.
Edits: 11/13/16
That would be quite a feat for the Cleveland, which disbanded in 1995 - and even more of a feat for the Amadeus, which disbanded in 1987! ;-)
No -- I said "over the years", didn't I? ;-) I actually attended one of the very last recitals of the Cleveland Quartet. By that time, William Preucil was the first violinist. The quartet disbanded when he accepted the position of concertmaster with the Cleveland Orchestra, where I think he still is.
I also attended one of the last NY recitals of the Amadeus. They were white-haired, but playing as well as ever, with their characteristic sound.
Of those I listed, only the Emerson, Brentano and Pacifica are recent.
Another more recent quartet I like, but haven't heard in person, is the London-based Eroica. They specialize in "authentic" performance of the 19th century romantic literature, but if you can hold your nose and listen, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Of course, the Arditti Quartet are the long time kings of contemporary music, but many other excellent younger groups have come along. Again, not your thing, I suppose.
The Leipzig Quartet is very good, I'd go hear them if they came to town.
Edits: 11/14/16
Actually, what I was trying to get at was performances/recordings of the Bartok Quartets which have been released since 2000, such as:
. . . and so on. . .
Actually, these recordings date back to only 2010 (and these aren't all of them!). Amazing, isn't it? Who says classical music is declining these days? ;-)
Anyway, a couple of these recordings have received (perhaps) extravagant claims from Amazon posters to the effect that one or another of them is/are the very BEST recording(s) of the particular Bartok Quartet(s) ever issued. Now granted, some of these posters my be naive amateurs, with little breadth of experience listening to the music. But OTOH, if I were making the sweeping claim that, in the Bartok Quartets, the old Julliard Quartet stands "alone at the top of the string quartet hierarchy", I would at least try to hear some of these newer recordings before I posted. And BTW, I haven't heard ANY of these recordings myself - but, as I say, I'm not the one making the claim! ;-)
Excellent pics- Chris.
at least that I can remember offhand. But point taken -- there are so many good string quartets now, nobody can claim to know for sure who if anyone is "top dog" at the moment, in Bartok or anything else. At least I can't.
But if any of these newer quartets stick together for 30 or 40 or more years, and leave a long and varied discography, as the older quartets I mentioned did, then maybe we will be justified in drawing some conclusions about them. If we're still alive. ;-)
That's the context in which I was praising the Juilliard. My comment about you was just kiddin', of course.
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