# Bartok: String Quartet #3



## lnjng (Dec 24, 2021)

This is Bartok's 3rd and shortest quartet, and it has not been discussed much on TC. Wikipedia has a short article on it, and it is currently in the 20th tier.

What are your thoughts on this piece? What are your favorite recordings?


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I have the Emerson Bartok string quartet cycle. I like the second submovement and the coda the most. It's possibly underrated among the Bartok quartets-- #4 gets too much attention compared to it


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

We discussed Bartok's 3rd quartet at length over on the Weekly String Quartet Thread (see solo and chamber music section on this site). A jolly group of regulars, and anyone who is interested, discuss a quartet a week. Some focus on the meaning and context of the piece, others discuss it in more musical terms and we all discuss the recordings we've been listening to. I always listen to as many recordings as I can particularly looking for some different recordings (that's just my 'thing') and then blog my favourites (I've done over 100 SQ blog posts now). If you want to read what we said about this quartet then it starts at the page linked below, Injng. It was a good discussion that week about that particular quartet. My own blog recommendations for that quartet are linked below, if you're interested.

Bartok 3rd Quartet

Merl's Bartok SQ3 blog review

Incidentally, if you're interested in string quartets come and join us on the weekly thread. This week we've been listening to a Czerny Quartet (my pick) but we've covered everything from Mozart to Kurtag. The list of quartets covered up to now is here.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I just put the Guarneri Quartet's recording of the Third onto the turntable for a spin. I have it in a box set of _The Six Quartets_ on RCA Red Seal - ARL3-2412. It's one of the several versions in my collection, and likely the one I listen to most.









I had given a spin to these discs just last week, but your post reminded me that of all the Bartok quartets, the Third is the one I have probably listened to the least. Which, as I listen to it now, surprises me, because it proves a wonderful work, truly representative of Bartok, from the extremely "dark" opening passage through the various textures and styles evident in the movements. One hears hints of each of the other five quartets in this one, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Thinking back, I seem to favor the Fifth Quartet, and after it the Fourth, when it comes to selecting one to play. It is not because I think these are the two best of the six -- each one is a unique gem -- but that they are the two I encountered first and were thus firmly supplanted into my consciousness a while before I had opportunity to hear the others of the set. They were among my first encounters with what I would term "modern music" and for years were strongly representative of that _strange_ sound world I would come to love as a fan of contemporary "serious" music.

The First and Second Quartets strike me as connective works -- linking Bartok to the older style of the more traditional "tonal" quartet, even though the two works are hardly "tonal" in the traditional sense of, say, Beethoven or Schubert, two great quartet composers.

The Sixth is a kind of odd fellow amongst the six, to my ears. Though it remains totally a Bartokian work, unmistakenly. Yet is seems scored more sparsely than the others (especially the Fourth and Fifth which to my ears sound "thick" in texture). It recalls to mind Bartok's Second Violin Concerto at times. But more precisely, in my experience, it recalls to mind Bach's Sixth Brandenburg Concerto, which has always struck me as somewhat _different_ in orchestration texture from the other five of that set.

Which prompts me to say that I have long subconsciously associated the six Bartok quartets with the six Bach Brandenburgs and rank them in terms of my own listening frequency. That is to say, I favor hearing Bach's Brandenburgs numbers Five and Four, followed by One and Two, then Six, and finally Three. But I cannot say the Third Brandenburg is in any way a lesser work or less interesting aurally than the other five, any more than I could say this of the Bartok Third compared to the other five. It is simply the way I experience the music.

And, admittedly, I never thought of this before reading your post and beginning to ponder the idea, but I wonder if my experience of how I approach the Bartok quartets is not somehow psychologically sprouted from the way I have approached the Bach Brandenburgs, six works I knew some years before I ever encountered the Bartok quartets. (I enjoyed the Bach Brandenburgs early in my "classical music appreciation" era even though at the time I was not a great fan of Bach or Baroque music in general, and had no interest at all in works such as the Cantatas, which today I value highly, almost above any other music of any other sort. Tastes change, they mature, they shift with experience.) I may not have enjoyed Bach when I first heard his music, with the exception of the Brandenburgs, especially numbers Five and Four, but I do recall loving Bartok's music from my first hearing, which was of the Fifth and Fourth Quartets in my late teens.

So, my experience of the Bartok Third should have nothing to do with how you experience it, but I must say that re-hearing it today, prior to posting these thoughts, has spurred in me an intriguing idea, which I have just shared (the connection to the Brandenburgs as listening preferences), and so those are _my_ thoughts on the piece.

I end by saying, I will no longer ignore the Third. It is an amazing work to which I should have turned more often over the years. And with that said, I'm going to now turn to Bach's Third Brandenburg and give that a well-deserved re-listen.

Thank you for your post, Injng. It has made my day.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

SONNET CLV said:


> I just put the Guarneri Quartet's recording of the Third onto the turntable for a spin. I have it in a box set of _The Six Quartets_ on RCA Red Seal - ARL3-2412. It's one of the several versions in my collection, and likely the one I listen to most.
> 
> View attachment 163215
> 
> ...


Very interesting. But I must say the third has always been a favourite of mine. I'm so glad you identify the Guarneri quartet. They are amazing in all six, but are rarely noted. In fact they are quite often denigrated, and I don't understand why.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

It's considered his quintessential quartet, and for very good reason IMO.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Don't listen to it much, and am revisiting it. But I like his 4th and 5th better.


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