# Can you detect differences among major string quartet groups?



## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

I just finished listening to a CD of the Emerson quartet playing Mozart's Hunt and Dissonance quartets. I composed a comment for my CD database, "pleasantly homogenous in all movements." Might this be a known trait of the Emerson quartet? Do other major quartets have distinguishing traits?

If you name one or more groups, could you also give me a representative CD title?

tia
las


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The Lindsay Quartet play like they are on the edge of their seats and letting things happen in the moment. As a result, there are a few instances of lapses in intonation, but they are most of the time able to grasp the heart of what they're playing.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

LAS said:


> I just finished listening to a CD of the Emerson quartet playing Mozart's Hunt and Dissonance quartets. I composed a comment for my CD database, "pleasantly homogenous in all movements." Might this be a known trait of the Emerson quartet? Do other major quartets have distinguishing traits?
> 
> tia
> las


Quarteto Italiano make the music sing like an popular song from Naples.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The Quatuor Mosaiques make period instruments sound like modern ones.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

LAS said:


> Do other major quartets have distinguishing traits?


If it's great playing with bad recorded sound, it's the Busch Quartet.


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

Manxfeeder said:


> The Lindsay Quartet play like they are on the edge of their seats and letting things happen in the moment. As a result, there are a few instances of lapses in intonation, but they are most of the time able to grasp the heart of what they're playing.


Could you name a representative CD?


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Quarteto Italiano make the music sing like an popular song from Naples.


Could you give me the name of a representative CD?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

LAS said:


> Could you name a representative CD?


Maybe their recording of Beethoven's C# minor quartet. The opening sounds thin, giving an ancient feeling, reaching back beyond fugues to the early Baroque ricercare, but it also sounds like someone suspended between this world and the next, so the next movement in a key a half-step higher sounds like an arrival in a new spiritual state. This isn't just music they are protraying but an experience.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

LAS said:


> Could you give me the name of a representative CD?


Beethoven op 131 -- the faster bits always make me think of this






And there's a moment in the fugue which makes me think of this


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> Beethoven op 131 -- the faster bits always make me think of this


R Strauss stole this song and got sued. Later, Disney stole it as well.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Aside from interpretation timbre is the musical term for the difference between performers playing the same pitch and volume. This is what differentiates Pavarotti above from other tenors -- and every other singer and instrumentalist from the rest.


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

LAS said:


> I just finished listening to a CD of the Emerson quartet playing Mozart's Hunt and Dissonance quartets. I composed a comment for my CD database, "pleasantly homogenous in all movements." Might this be a known trait of the Emerson quartet? Do other major quartets have distinguishing traits?
> 
> If you name one or more groups, could you also give me a representative CD title?
> 
> ...


I listened to a CD by a different quartet group and then I listened to another Emerson CD. So far it holds. Emerson sounds (to me) more homogeneous. I attribute the "pleasantly" in my OP to a rounded sound. On the occasions when they put more edge into the sound they all do it to the same degree. I find this fascinating. I'm bumping in hopes of getting more responses. I have one more Emerson CD in my collection and will come back and bump again with my report.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Being a pianist, my ear is more sensitive to the differences amongst such performers and performances. Gould, Lang Lang and Brendel are three that are really easy to spot.


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