# In praise of the *other* Dvorak string quartets



## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

All the love tends to go to the (excellent) 12th Quartet, the so-called "American"

Show some love for the other 13 quartets here. There has to be worth in those too.


----------



## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

There are many Dvorak quartets I find excellent. 

Excellent - 10, 12, 13, 14
Very enjoyable - 1, 8, 9, 11
Enjoyable - 5, 6, 7
Not bad - 4
Meh! — 2, 3

Apart from the last two quartets (that don't get enough love by half) I'm giving a special shout out to the sadly neglected, underappreciated but terrific Slavonic (10th) quartet, which I adore. The only missteps for me in his whole cycle are the 2nd (dull and is too long for its limited thematic material) and the 3rd which is wayyyyy too long (an hour plus at worst) boring, and goes absolutely nowhere, slowly. Listening to Dvorak's 3rd Quartet is a labour/burden not a joy. Possibly one of my least favourite quartets by a major composer. Conversely, if you want to hear how good the Slavonic Quartet is check out the link below. Love that 1st movement (but all of it is great)!


----------



## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Fully agreed, Merl. Starting with No. 10 op. 51 ("Slavonic") you are perfectly on the safe side. You are to encounter great music.

Yes, No. 3 ... that's a problem. Let's comfort ourselves with the fact that even Beethoven wrote some piano sonata No. 4 E-flat major op. 7, which happens to be the second longest in his oeuvre after the Hammerklavier, but is maybe not in the same league.

I take your posting as an inspiration for investigating Nos. 8 and 9.

(Maybe a thread on the numbering of the quartets could be helpful.)


----------



## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Among SQs 10-14 the only one I'm less enthusiastic about is SQ11. Its good but not on the level of the quartets around it. For me Dvorak's SQs are wonderful and equal in quality to Schubert (although Mendelssohn's are even better). Dvorak was a genius of melody.


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I don't think op.51 is _that_ neglected, or only in the sense that everything is neglected vs. the "American quartet"  Maybe this was an accident but IIRC it was ca. the 4th Dvorak quartet I encountered (on the Naxos disc together with op.105) and it seems to be recorded not that unfrequently outside complete projects and it has a nickname. 
I don't think I remember enough of the first ca. 6-7 quartets, i.e. w/o op. D maj, opp. 2, 4, 9, 10, 12 (the Stamitz quartet box uses only these numbers)

My favorites are the last two; I used to favor the more compact op.105 Ab maj but now I think the more expansive G maj op.106 might even be the more interesting piece.
Then the op.51 (10) and the "American"; the slight "problem" with the "Slavonic" is that the first three movements can sound too similar, they are all rather lyrical in a moderate tempo.
For some reason, I never really got the op.61 (11) but I appreciate the d minor op.34 (9) that would be my candidate for slightly underrated and I think I also liked the E maj op.80 (8) and maybe the a minor op.16 (7?) but I might confound the latter with the d minor or the earlier a minor (op.12).


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Merl said:


> There are many Dvorak quartets I find excellent.
> 
> Excellent - 10, 12, 13, 14
> Very enjoyable - 1, 8, 9, 11
> ...


I think that 8 is considerably less interesting than 9 and 11; I don't know 1. I personally don't ever want to hear 12 again in this life. Have you heard the old Vlach, not the Vlach on Naxos?


----------



## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

As I said on the Dvorak 12 post, Mandryka, I have the old Vlach and new Vlach recordings of the 12th and prefer the later one (yes, I know that sounds wrong but it's just a personal preference). This isn't the case in any of the other Dvorak quartets (where the old Vlach were often superb and sometimes reigned supreme) but the new Vlach really do a great job of the American. The old Vlach's 9,10,11, 13 and 14 are superb. Their 1968 9th is wonderful performance.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

You could be right, I’m just not interested in 12 so have never kept up with recordings. I’m too cool for 12.


----------



## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

Last 5 are the best imho , no. 12 is one of the SQ 's that I got to know first ... I still like the work but there's so much more to explore in Dvorák's chamber music.
I like the op.34 too ... listened to that one quite early on too...Panocha Quartet recording of 1991, which my father owns

Don't know why but some of the earlier ones , like the no. 3 don't appeal to me that much.


----------

