# Lengthy String Quartets



## LvB

Prior to Beethoven, few if any string quartets were much over twenty minutes, but expansion set in with the 19th century. Beethoven's and Schubert's last quartets each take about fifty minutes, and Romantic quartets of forty minutes plus are common (Reger's d minor quartet is over fifty). But surely the champion is Dvorak's [3rd] in D Major, which lasts around seventy (70!) minutes. Can anyone think of any other string quartets which last more than an hour in a standard performance (assuming all repeats are taken, etc.)?


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## jurianbai

SOme of my longest duration of string quartets pieces are : 

Nyman SQ no.3 (00:18:00 for 1 mov), 
Novak Vitezslav SQ No.2 in D Op.35 ( 00:17:18 for 1st mov , 00:14:00 for 2nd mov)

hh:mm:ss


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## Guest

Morton Feldman, _String Quartet no. 2_. One movement. Over six hours. (The Flux Quartet performance on five CDs or one DVD, takes 6 hours 7 minutes and 7 seconds.)


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## World Violist

I knew immediately when I saw the title of this that Feldman's would creep into it somewhere... like at the very beginning. He officially owns this thread and makes it utterly useless.

Philip Glass should write one to beat him, though. haha...


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## opus67

some guy said:


> Morton Feldman, _String Quartet no. 2_. One movement. Over six hours. (The Flux Quartet performance on five CDs or one DVD, takes 6 hours 7 minutes and 7 seconds.)


(!) Have there been live performances of this work?

And here's a question, would you prefer to attend a concert of this work or _The Ring_?


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## YsayeOp.27#6

Off topic... Sorabji's second piano *quintet *is supposed to take 4 hours to perform.


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## Tapkaara

Sibelius's String Quartet in D minor "Voces intimae" usually takes about a half hour.

A 6-hour string quartet? Who can sit through that much music? Kinda makes me wonder if he really had 6-hours worth of music to express or if this was a little bit of a stunt? I suppose we wouldn't be talking about it if it were any shorter...


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## World Violist

Hey, Satie's "Vexations" lasts about 22 or so hours when performed in full. John Cage supervised the first full performance of it, in which the hall was left open and the pianist switched out every couple of hours or so. Shockingly enough, one person stayed in the hall for the whole performance. I'm not sure how deeply in a coma he was, but he was there!


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## Tapkaara

Well, there you go. Satie was a showman, something of a provocateur. He is, I guess, one of music's great surrealists. 

Feldman was a colleague of another showman, John Cage. I argue that these fellows, for the most part, made names for themselves not on the quality of their music alone, but by being blanatly silly. I mean, come on...Cage's most famous work is PURE SILENCE. Is that really music, or is it a stunt? I'm sure a few in this forum would actually say "Yes, this IS music!", but I argue that it's not. It gets us talking about the "composer," though...doesn't it?

Now, I have not heard any of the contect of Feldman's 6-hour opus, and perhaps there are sections of it that are good. But for 6 hours? I suppose if the work was only 30 minutes, it would not be as famous. And who really wants to listen to the same thing for 6 hours, anyway?


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## Weston

Also speaking of Cage, I understand his _As Slow As Possible_ is still undergoing it's premier performance. It is a work for organ however, not a string quartet.

I think Beethoven's late string quartets are quite long enough actually. It would take a great deal of unjustified hubris to write one that is much longer.


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## World Violist

Weston said:


> Also speaking of Cage, I understand his _As Slow As Possible_ is still undergoing it's premier performance. It is a work for organ however, not a string quartet.


By the way, it's scheduled for a 639-year long performance. It's on its third note... I don't think any of us will be hearing the end of this one!


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## Tapkaara

I wonder how many CDs would be required for a recording of this masterwork..?


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## World Violist

Tapkaara said:


> I wonder how many CDs would be required for a recording of this masterwork..?


Don't ask, it's a corporate secret.

And if anyone assaults us for being off-topic, one can probably easily enough arrange ASLSP (AS Long aS Possible) for string quartet.


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## Tapkaara

Music really is in the ear of the beholder.


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## opus67

World Violist said:


> By the way, it's scheduled for a 639-year long performance. It's on its third note... I don't think any of us will be hearing the end of this one!


That should have been a Quartet _till_ the End of Time.


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## World Violist

opus67 said:


> That should have been a Quartet _till_ the End of Time.


Well that would be easy enough... just write a theme, at the end of which is "repeat ad lib until signs of Apocalypse."


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## Head_case

jurianbai said:


> SOme of my longest duration of string quartets pieces are :
> 
> Nyman SQ no.3 (00:18:00 for 1 mov),
> Novak Vitezslav SQ No.2 in D Op.35 ( 00:17:18 for 1st mov , 00:14:00 for 2nd mov)
> 
> hh:mm:ss


I know the Nyman, but not the Vitezslav.

Nyman could've shaved off 78 minutes from his Quartet No.3 and no one would have been any the wiser 

Can you tell us more about the Vitezslav String Quartet? I know nothing about him.


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## emiellucifuge

Itz Vitezslav Novak by the way..

Novak was a czech composer, neo-romantic/modernist - Pupil of Dvorak.


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## jurianbai

yes , new SQ fans.

I got the Novak SQ played by Harold SQ . see also http://www.editionsilvertrust.com/novak-string-quartet-2.htm


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## Head_case

Wow! 

How do you play all four parts by yourself?


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## Alexandre F

I hope already that is mentioned quartet 9 of Robert Simpson which takes maybe one hour in performance. Very great music!


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## Jeremy Marchant

Tapkaara said:


> A 6-hour string quartet? Who can sit through that much music?


It's very slow.

However, following Brian Eno and others, it would be easy to define a process of interlocking elements that repeat at varying rates, and which change in some way - addition of pitches, variation of existing pitches - so that any given combination of elements (ie phrases) never recurs. It's therefore infinitely long. And, because it's infinitely long, you could have lots of fast passages as well as slow ones.

In fact, I feel another masterpiece coming along...


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## Head_case

> Quote:
> Originally Posted by Tapkaara View Post
> A 6-hour string quartet? Who can sit through that much music?
> It's very slow.
> 
> 
> 
> However, following Brian Eno and others, it would be easy to define a process of interlocking elements that repeat at varying rates, and which change in some way - addition of pitches, variation of existing pitches - so that any given combination of elements (ie phrases) never recurs. It's therefore infinitely long. And, because it's infinitely long, you could have lots of fast passages as well as slow ones.
Click to expand...

And is this genuinely 'original music'?

Or just a rehash of the same idea, with theme and variation i.e. permutation?

I'm not sure I like the sound of lengthy string quartets. Maybe if we all went to string quartet disco raves where the string quartet players go on Ecstasy or LSD and play fiddle all night out drawing their bows and stirring up pizzicati to loony boppers for 6 hours on end....


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## Jeremy Marchant

Head_case said:


> And is this genuinely 'original music'?


Nothing I write is original.

It was not meant seriously. However, should you care to listen to Eno's Discreet music (c30 mins) you'll hear the process I describe, except that Eno chose to vary the musical parameters of the various themes on a whim in real time, rather than calculating a system of variation which would yield infinite permutations.


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## Sid James

I think Feldman's earlier _String Quartet No. 1_ is pretty long (though not 6 hours!), just under 80 minutes.

Why do people judge music like this, I ask? Great painters like Michelangelo created the vast Sistine ceiling frescoes, and closer to our own time, the Mexicans Diego Rivera & David Siqueiros also painted very large murals. These paintings encompass the totality of human existence, not only as a whole, but in their many details. The same can be said for music, like that very long Feldman string quartet, or (say) Wagner's operas. Why can't people just accept that the artist wanted to make a big statement, & leave it at that rather than making judgements of music that they probably have never even heard?...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andre said:


> I think Feldman's earlier _String Quartet No. 1_ is pretty long (though not 6 hours!), just under 80 minutes.
> 
> Why do people judge music like this, I ask? Great painters like Michelangelo created the vast Sistine ceiling frescoes, and closer to our own time, the Mexicans Diego Rivera & David Siqueiros also painted very large murals. These paintings encompass the totality of human existence, not only as a whole, but in their many details. The same can be said for music, like that very long Feldman string quartet, or (say) Wagner's operas. Why can't people just accept that the artist wanted to make a big statement, & leave it at that rather than making judgements of music that they probably have never even heard?...


The artist needs to balance quantity with quality. A six hour SQ sounds like quantity only to me. Maybe he should charge the audience by the hour for concert tickets, and see how many walk out after half an hour.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Lengthy SQs?
Well, let's see:

*Schubert*'s G-major D. 887
*Franck*'s D-major
*Schönberg*'s d-minor Op. 7
*Schönberg*'s [without key signature] Op. 37
*van Beethoven*'s Bb-major, c#-minor, and a-minor Opp. 130-32

Off the top, those are about the biggest SQs out there.

*Chausson*'s c-minor Op. 35 would have been huge if completed; as is, the three movements are pretty big.

*D'Indy*'s D-major Op. 35 & *Magnard*'s e-minor Op. 16 are both fairly large.

*Dvorák*'s G-major and Ab-major B. 192-93 are also pretty hefty.


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> The artist needs to balance quantity with quality. A six hour SQ sounds like quantity only to me.


This is a judgment you've made after having NOT heard the work, right? (Did you not notice what Andre said, or do you simply not care?)


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> This is a judgment you've made after having NOT heard the work, right? (Did you not notice what Andre said, or do you simply not care?)


That's what many people around here (unfortunately) do - prejudge music. & in most cases, I'd say 99% of the time, it's post-WW2 music. I think some people may be discomforted by the feeling that they won't understand it, & so dismiss it. Maybe it's all based upon fear, or just being bought out of your comfort zone too much. I'm totally the opposite, I like to be bought out of my comfort zone, when it comes to classical music anyway. I can't stand "cookie-cutter" music which all sounds the same, like Baroque IMO, but unlike these people, I actually tend to give it a listen first before judging it...


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## Air

Andre said:


> *I can't stand "cookie-cutter" music which all sounds the same, like Baroque IMO*, but unlike these people, I actually tend to give it a listen first before judging it...


Please give it _another_ listen... 

Why is it that so many people feel that they must hate something for their opinion of liking something to be valid? It's as if - "we can't take you seriously if you don't know what you dislike. Tell us, announce it to world, it's very important!"

I've done this millions of times in the past and each time, I find myself ashamed once I'm able to grow into the music of the composer that I've dismissed. Most composers I snub now tend to be those that I've liked in the past, and have now gotten past, or "grown out" of. This is often (sometimes) a sign of shallowness on the composer's part.

But what am I saying here? I ought to be ashamed, because this might not be, probably isn't, true. Mozart isn't shallow, and he often puts people off like this. You leave him behind, snub him and his music. But later on you rediscover something, and this something leads to more "somethings". What this is is a process of rediscovery. Once you think you "get" something fully, you move on, but with new insights you realize that the "fullest" was not even close to scratching the surface of the music. You can feed on it some more.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> This is a judgment you've made after having NOT heard the work, right? (Did you not notice what Andre said, or do you simply not care?)


Yes, I have not listened to the work at all. *I'm referring to the six hour string quartet here.* Yes, Andre's point is basically that the composer wants to make a big statement about humanity.

I think a six hour string quartet is plain silly.


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## Guest

And it's even sillier to have an opinion about a work you've never heard.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> And it's even sillier to have an opinion about a work you've never heard.


I knew that was coming. That's a valid call, on the surface. *Remember, I'm referring to the six hour SQ.*

I *challenge* the composer, or any composer living today, to write a six hour string quartet and charge concert tickets by the hour, and let the majority of the audience decide, so that we, the audience, are not taken for granted; that many of us don't simply think "all art is good, none are bad".

If I sit though it all six hours, then I'm happy to pay $600, otherwise, it's $100 at most if I don't survive the first hour.

How about it?


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## Sid James

*Air:* I agree with much of what you say. The more I find out about all types of music, the more I appreciate it (I'm now reading a history of western music, very interesting). I was only trying to say that just because I might not be highly enamoured of (say) Baroque music at the moment, I don't go on boards like this & rubbish/prejudge it, which is what some people do with music of the mid to late C20th.

*Harpsichord Concerto:* I just listened to a 5 minute clip of Feldman's epic 6 hour long string quartet on youtube. I can only compare it to some of Ligeti's works (eg. Requiem, Ramifications, Chamber Concerto, etc) where each voice or instrument has a seperate part, which is independent of but related to the others. Feldman's music seems to be all about subtle gradations and slight differences between the voices, how they enmesh with eachother, and yet stand out. In a way, he was using techniques in Renaissance polyphony & Baroque counterpoint, but in a modern way. I urge you to go to youtube & have a listen, it is actually quite gentle music:


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andre said:


> *Harpsichord Concerto:* I just listened to a 5 minute clip of Feldman's epic 6 hour long string quartet on youtube. I can only compare it to some of Ligeti's works (eg. Requiem, Ramifications, Chamber Concerto, etc) where each voice or instrument has a seperate part, which is independent of but related to the others. Feldman's music seems to be all about subtle gradations and slight differences between the voices, how they enmesh with eachother, and yet stand out. In a way, he was using techniques in Renaissance polyphony & Baroque counterpoint, but in a modern way. I urge you to go to youtube & have a listen, it is actually quite gentle music:


Thanks. It's kinda reptitive, almost hypnotic. Listenable 5 minutes out of 360 minutes!

I did a search on amazon to see what people who bought recordings of it wrote. I guess it really is a personal sense of enjoyment/interpretation over a 6 hour modern piece. Many ways about it. It's not like a 3.5 hour Handel opera, where the scope of enjoyment/interpretation is relatively more "focused". So, if you saw humanity painted, then that's you. If I saw my childhood years, then that's me.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Cf. 'the six-hour' string quartet: don't forget, *Satie's Vexations* were intended to be performed for approximately 24 hours continuously...


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto, why is it that you keep reminding us that you're talking about "the six hour string quartet"? There's never been any question which string quartet is the topic of this particular conversation. This particular conversation started with your particular comment about this particular piece. No one has said anything that would lead anyone to wonder which quartet we're talking about.

That makes it easy to conclude that you're simply obsessed with the idea of time. But my point was, and is, simply that you cannot have an opinion about a piece you've never heard. (Now that you have heard a five minute extract, it might be time to float the next question, which is whether, once you have heard any of it, any of your opinions about it are valid, hein?)

In any case, we should all be clear that your idea about charging for the concert per hour is entirely your own private fantasy and has nothing at all to do with anything that has happened or ever will happen in the real world.

And I would really like to see you argue that "a personal sense of enjoyment/interpretation" describes something specific to Feldman's 2nd string quartet, something different from what one gets from any performance of any piece of music from any time.


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## Argus

Do the musicians perform for 6 hours straight or do they have rests at the end of movements. 6 hours is a long time to go without a **** or even a bite to eat. Or do they have like substitute players who they 'tag' into the piece when they want a rest or is it something like a relay race where a performer switches with another at a certain point. What about the encores?






After listening to a few fragments of it it sounds alright and would probably be enjoyable in the right environment, maybe with some visual stimulus or being baked out of your brain. Maybe listening to it whilst performing another activity that takes about 6 hours will make it easier to handle.


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## Head_case

> Maybe listening to it whilst performing another activity that takes about 6 hours will make it easier to handle.


....is this not....the essence of 'background music' then? 

In any case, Harpsiconc. may have a valid point. If cultural expectations dictate that a string quartet usually falls in the range of less than 60 minutes, and then someone composes one of 6 hours, expecting to be treated like others, it raises several problems.

Firstly, another composer, determined not to be outdone, who decides to compose a string quartet lasting 6 days, has as much privilege to expect a listening audience, as one of 6 hours. If this is the case, then a composer of an anti-duration tendency, can insist that his string quartet lasting 6 seconds is as valuable to the repertoire, as the one lasting 6 days, since in any prospect, time and its extension, is irrelevant when it comes to experiencing the 'duration' of music.

This kind of argument seems incredible, does it not? The a priori position, is either "if it is of 6 hours, then it has got to be worthwhile listening!" or alternatively, one of suspicion - one which is justified by raising questions as to why a classical convention. such as the very traditional string quartet medium, should be used in such a sensationalist mode.

Not that I disagree with either viewpoints in any (head) case. Feodor Dostoevski has his fans. As does Flannery O'Connor. I do wonder however, if a composer is unable to render his work more concise, has he really reached a position of mature writing? Thus, a 6 hour string quartet, is very different in form, from a string quartet cycle, lasting 6 hours: it isn't exactly a waltz. The latter is written over years of a composer's journey into composition, often reworking and rehashing earlier ideas, to take form ~ classical form. It embodies the idea of closure within each quartet; rather than being a pantheistic mess of ideas all agglutinated into one 6 hour ordeal.

The alternative view...that a 6 hour string quartet ... is very special.... requires a special explanation to make its case to be heard, rather than just being heard as some kind of sanctimonious 'right'. I certainly wouldn't buy a 6 hour string quartet, nor attend a 6 hour quartet recital. It just doesn't fit into a Sunday morning recital programme


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## HarpsichordConcerto

I'm not obsessed with time, as member some guy suggested. I wrote above, quite simply, that it's about *quality and quantity*. A six hour piece demands a lot of resources from audiences and performers, as member Head case pointed out. I suggested therefore, that the composer should not simply take us for granted by assuming we will commit time and money to attend a series of concerts to listen to it.

The five minute excerpt member Andre kindly posted above is listenable, though it was a reptitive 5 minutes. If that motif rambles on for 10 minutes, then I'm going to call it bombastic. So I sure hope the 260 minutes better be filled with pretty good ideas and not a few ideas stretched out reptitively over 6 hours.


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## Sid James

What we have to remember with long quartets generally, is that they were meant to stretch the medium to an extreme. I've just been reading a book on the history of classical music, and it says that Beethoven & Schubert with their long late string quartets (relative to Haydn or Mozart), were really pushing the medium to an extreme level which probably baffled contemporary audiences. They might have been used to relatively 'light' works of 25 minutes duration, but with Beethoven & Schubert got some densely argued, quite 'serious' 45 minute or so pieces. In a way, these guys were definitely out of step with what audiences in that period wanted or were interested in. Note that this period saw the rise of Italian light opera, the type Rossini was very adept at producing. Audiences wanted to be entertained, that is to say, their tastes vis a vis the string quartet medium, had not really evolved from the late C18th.

So is what Feldman did in the late C20th, with his 80 minute long _String Quartet No. 1_, or the much longer _No. 2_, much different? By now, the early C21st, we have had about 200 years to grasp and grapple with the works of Beethoven & Schubert, but maybe we are still not ready for the type of thing that Feldman had in mind. We also have to remember, that a work presenting a 'grand narrative,' such as those by Beethoven & Schubert, had become outdated by the time Feldman was composing. There might be little conflict or drama in this music for all I know (I can't judge from only hearing the 5 minute excerpt, but from what I've read mainly points to this), but maybe the lack of a grand statement or of a big point or climax/anticlimax is what he was getting at - just letting the music 'be' and 'happen' just as life sometimes does, with little drama or overt action.

I have to agree with Some Guy that Feldman's _String Quartet No. 2_ should be presented as a whole work at a live performance, just like any other piece. Definitely with an interval (or two?) for practical purposes. It's like if you went to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome, you would want to see the whole of Michelangelo's paintings, not only a detail, and perhaps (if you had the chance) go back to see it a number of times. It's the same with any other long masterpiece in music, you don't want to only hear the choral finale of Beethoven's _Symphony No. 9_, but the whole work (recently at a concert in Sydney, only the finale was given, which I find very strange in this day & age, indeed)...


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## Guest

Well, this is certainly a good example of talking out of one's hat. All this conversation about something that's unheard, something that no one knows anything about except that it's six hours long. Even that it's by Morton Feldman, which is the other thing that's known, is not of much use, unless we know something about Feldman or about contemporary music generally.

In that regard, it is not surprising that Andre has come closest to the truth: "There might be little conflict or drama in this music for all I know (I can't judge from only hearing the 5 minute excerpt, but from what I've read mainly points to this), but maybe the lack of a grand statement or of a big point or climax/anticlimax is what he was getting at - just letting the music 'be' and 'happen' just as life sometimes does, with little drama or overt action."

In fact, that's pretty well spot on.

The rest of it? Well, when the quartet is played live, it is played straight through with no pauses. You can easily find the account of what the FLUX quartet did to prepare for their live performance. In any case, there's no series of concerts. Just the one, which lasts for six hours. And since you know what you're getting into before it even starts, there's no question of Feldman's taking anyone for granted. Indeed, there wouldn't be, anyway. Everyone in any audience is free to devote whatever time or money they like to listen to anything they want. If you don't want to sit for six hours to listen to this quartet, then you simply don't.

It is not, additionally, the essence of background music. It is very plainly foreground music, as nothing else is going on for those six hours. (You could put it on at home--I suggest the DVD version, which is what I have, to the five CD version, as swapping out discs would be a huge distraction--and then do other things. But that's true for any music played at home. Even if it's loud and dramatic, you can turn the volume down and go about your business.) Perhaps an aid to meditation would be closer to the mark, if, that is, you need your music to serve non-musical purposes.

This comment, going back to the hat talking remark, is completely off the mark: "The a priori position, is either "if it is of 6 hours, then it has got to be worthwhile listening!" or alternatively, one of suspicion - one which is justified by raising questions as to why a classical convention. such as the very traditional string quartet medium, should be used in such a sensationalist mode." Really? Those are the only two options? The time really has nothing to do with its quality, necessarily. It does have everything to do with the experience. With minimal music (whether of the repetitive type or the sparse type), long stretches of time are often necessary to fully experience that kind of music. I don't know if I can say any words that will convince anyone of this. I only know that certain kinds of music need a good long stretch of time to have a satisfying effect. Feldman's kind of music played for the time span of Webern would be silly. Just as Webern's kind of music would be silly if it went on for more than a few minutes. It's all about what's appropriate to the materials.

And, finally, I can assure Head_case that Feldman's work is at least a late work of his--if late translates well enough to mature. As for "a pantheistic mess of ideas all agglutinated into one 6 hour ordeal," well, that's rather off the mark, too. In fact, that's all my eye. It perhaps won't do any good to point this out, but whether or not a piece requires "a special explanation to make its case to be heard" is neither here nor there. Special explanations are for the inexperienced or the hostile. People who have been listening to contemporary music for some time, willingly, carefully, sympathetically, certainly would not (certainly _do_ not) require any sort of explanation at all, special or not.


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## Head_case

Hats off to you then 

When it comes to 'talking out of one's hat' ~ presuming others are not familiar with Feldman's work is a bit of a long stretch - say - about 6 hours? 

It's a fundamental flaw in logic, to try and make the 'special case' for the 6 hour string quartet - something which you seem to be unaware, that you are actually doing. Why not a 6 day string quartet? If time does not matter...?

Rather than illustrate contempt for the lay person or the average bod, your reasoning falls into that very 'special case' of having to try to reason, why a 6 hour string quartet deserves listeners' attention. Perhaps time does matter: within reason. However none of your reasoning has qualified this: we're all ears. Or some ears maybe

It does seem that you are miscontruing a lot, and I'm not saying this to denigrate anything you say, but it does seem that you are reacting to others comments and reading (unpleasant) things into it, instead of understanding: for example: 


> It is not, additionally, the essence of background music. It is very plainly foreground music, as nothing else is going on for those six hours. (You could put it on at home-


as a response to another poster's conjecture: 


> Maybe listening to it whilst performing another activity that takes about 6 hours will make it easier to handle.


to which I responded:


> ....is this not....the essence of 'background music' then?


"Nothing going on for 6 hours" does not qualify such music as "foreground" music either. Thinking about this scenario, I can envisage the possibility that someone does find 6 hours to watch the DVD continuously. However, this is the special case scenario. It is not accessible to everyone. It is 'extra-ordinary' for anyone, to find 6 hours in a day, to listen continuously in this way. Maybe in the future it won't be? In which case, the 6 hour quartet composer, is truly ground-breaking  If "nothing goes on for 6 hours", and a listener's mind is expected to foreground such music, then the demands on his attentional skills and concentration over his physiological capabilities will be extreme. This much...is an argument for hearing such music as *'torture'*.

On a separate point, your argument seems to argue the very point which both Harpsicon & I have made:



> The time really has nothing to do with its quality, necessarily. It does have everything to do with the experience.


Harpsicon. has expressed his view of quality over quantity in a vernacular sense: I've referred to this as 'experienced time' - that is - the 'time experienced existentially' (or "duration"), rather than a chronological concept of time. Admittedly, if you're not familiar with Bergson's Time & Duration, then it won't make sense to you or any others, talking about existential time, which is experienced in the moment, versus the concept (and it is a concept albeit reified) of 'linear time'. Bergson's 'duration' - or 'time experienced', bears parallels in the literature of Marcel Proust, where 'time recovered', is triggered instinctually through free associations of that kind of existential meander. And in assonance with your view, none of us disagree that the 'experience' of listening to music overrides the chronological/linear time on the music's DVD notes. The chronological time ... does not matter (a great deal)...it does not matter...within reason. However when the chronological time of a quartet is a great deal longer than most...and there is no reason for it, then it is very suspect. A hermeneutic of suspicion, or an attitude of suspicion, is not necessarily unhealthy either.

In your quote, your reasoning remains opaque. Please explain why a string quartet lasting 6 days would be a perfectly acceptable form for a musical audience. By extension, the logic that a 6 hour quartet is not a special case; and time does not matter, implies that a 6 day quartet is of the same category.



> Really? Those are the only two options?


Contempt; disgust and ridicule and other unreflective knee-jerk reactions aren't of any interest so far as we are discussing the appreciation of music. Feel free however to include those 



> Special explanations are for the inexperienced or the hostile.


And why, in counter-response, an Either/Or? 

Special explanations are equally delivered to those who deign themselves in an elite.

Music is a universal language; it does have conditions for accessing and entry into its appreciation. However when it becomes so convoluted and warped, that it brings elemental features of music into the foreground as an _extreme_ form of musical practice, then what faces us, is not music per se, but a conceptual framework applied to music with fundamentally flawed premises.

The experiential approach - of listening to 5 minutes of a 6 hour string quartet, tells us that music can indeed be experienced (and enjoyed piecemeal). It isn't a challenge to listen to 5 minutes of a string cycle; a cinematic script and engage with this little piecemeal. Let's not pretend however, that this 5 minutes experience of the 6 hour completed work, equates to listening to the 6 hour quartet start to finish in one sitting.

If you have any other insights into how to appreciate 6 hour string quartets, I'm sure others (and myself) would like to know. The proposition itself is unattractive to me, and I can't see the logic in it; you haven't explained it very convincingly either, and if the only way to get it is to listen to the 6 hours in totality, delivered in one mega sit-out, then feel free to call anyone who refuses to buy/listen or entertain the 6 hour quartet anything you please 

PS - on a good day, I listen to at least 6 hours of string quartet music - not one single piece however.

Gotta run! Going to be late for work ~ time is of the essence!


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## Argus

I present the full Feldman SQ 2, in as little as 28 separate segments.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7


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## Argus

8
9
10
11
12
13
14


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## Argus

15
16
17
18
19
20
21


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## Argus

22
23
24
25
26
27
28

Also, if you are a fan of 20th century classical music in general, check out the guy who posted all those videos channel for some good stuff:http://www.youtube.com/user/John11inch


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## Head_case

sounds like the Flux Quartet recording?


Any survivors after enduring all 80 pages of Feldman .. please post your experience here in less than 28 paragraphs.


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## Albert7

some guy said:


> Morton Feldman, _String Quartet no. 2_. One movement. Over six hours. (The Flux Quartet performance on five CDs or one DVD, takes 6 hours 7 minutes and 7 seconds.)


Kudos and I love this longgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg piece.

Now someone please write an 8 hour string quartet.


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## elgar's ghost

Max Reger's op. 74 quartet (1904) lasts for just under an hour - one of the longest up until then, I think.


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## TurnaboutVox

Hmm, the Drolc Quartet manage Reger's Op 74 quartet in a speedy 48:16

Robert Simpson's 9th String quartet is an impressive 57:49, as played by the Delme Quartet!


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## Mahlerian

Dvorak's Quartet No. 3 in D major runs from 63-70 minutes.

Schoenberg's Quartet No. 1 in D minor runs about 45 or so. All the movements are run together, so the quartet's playing without a break that entire time.

Zemlinsky's Quartet No. 2 is pretty lengthy as well, I believe.


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## quack

*Bernhard Lang* - The Anatomy of Disaster - 1 hour 9 minutes
*Beat Furrer* - String Quartet No. 3 - 51 minutes
*Horațiu Rădulescu* - String Quartet No. 4 - 49 minutes
*Artur Schnabel* - String Quartet No. 1 - 51 minutes
*Henryk Górecki* - String Quartet No. 3 - 55 minutes
*Francisco Guerrero Marín* - Zayin - 1 hour 5 minutes
*Joseph Haydn* - 7 Last Words - 1 hour 10 minutes approx
The Emerson string quartet take 1 hour 17 minutes to play *Bach*'s _Art of the Fugue_

Listen to them one after the other and you may beat Feldman.


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## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> Schoenberg's Quartet No. 1 in D minor runs about 45 or so. All the movements are run together, so the quartet's playing without a break that entire time.


IMHO, a case of "sounds like a bad idea on paper but works great nevertheless." Ditto for Liszt's Sonata in B minor. The "seemingly bad" idea being a very long single movement solo piano / string quartet piece.


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## hpowders

My favorite lengthy string quartet is the Beethoven A minor.


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## Albert7

quack said:


> *Bernhard Lang* - The Anatomy of Disaster - 1 hour 9 minutes
> *Beat Furrer* - String Quartet No. 3 - 51 minutes
> *Horațiu Rădulescu* - String Quartet No. 4 - 49 minutes
> *Artur Schnabel* - String Quartet No. 1 - 51 minutes
> *Henryk Górecki* - String Quartet No. 3 - 55 minutes
> *Francisco Guerrero Marín* - Zayin - 1 hour 5 minutes
> *Joseph Haydn* - 7 Last Words - 1 hour 10 minutes approx
> The Emerson string quartet take 1 hour 17 minutes to play *Bach*'s _Art of the Fugue_
> 
> Listen to them one after the other and you may beat Feldman.


Easy peasy... I can do that for sure


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## Johnnie Burgess

opus67 said:


> (!) Have there been live performances of this work?
> 
> And here's a question, would you prefer to attend a concert of this work or _The Ring_?


Yes there has been live performances of this. I feel sorry for the performers.


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## SuperTonic

Johnnie Burgess said:


> Yes there has been live performances of this. I feel sorry for the performers.


Why feel sorry for them? Surely their choice of repertoire was voluntary (unless they were students of course but I can't imagine this work being assigned to a student ensemble).


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## Portamento

Obviously no competition for Feldman, but Schmitt's _String Quartet_ of 1947 deserves a mention.

*01* Rêve (Dream). Mouvement modéré *12:36*​*02* Jeu (Game). Vif *05:03*​*03* In memoriam. Lent *11:08*​*04* Élan (Rush). Animé *11:26*​
*TOTAL: 40:13*


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## Omicron9

The Feldman 2nd string quartet is a beautiful piece. Before dismissing it as a stunt, you should maybe... you know... hear it. Having it on CD is very good, as you can listen to it as you desire: in chunks or in toto.


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## jegreenwood

I don't know the string quartet, but his Piano and String Quartet (80 minutes/1 movement) is one of my desert island discs. I also have "For Christian Wolff" (among several other works) which is about 4 hours. And no, I have not listened to it in a single siting.


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## Johnnie Burgess

Omicron9 said:


> The Feldman 2nd string quartet is a beautiful piece. Before dismissing it as a stunt, you should maybe... you know... hear it. Having it on CD is very good, as you can listen to it as you desire: in chunks or in toto.


You can listen to it on spotify.


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## Omicron9

jegreenwood said:


> I don't know the string quartet, but his Piano and String Quartet (80 minutes/1 movement) is one of my desert island discs. I also have "For Christian Wolff" (among several other works) which is about 4 hours. And no, I have not listened to it in a single siting.


If you like the Piano and String Quartet, I suspect you'd also very much like his 2nd quartet. Wonderful textures and slowly evolving development.


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