# A Specific String Quartet Sound



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

I'm new to listening to string quartets, but I'm interested in changing performance styles over time, so I'm listening to early recordings by the Busch Quartet and others, and have actually found them extremely enjoyable. Many features of their playing - reduced vibrato, frequent portamenti, and the general feel of lightness and quickness rather than heavy forcefulness - happen to align exactly with the kinds of sonic aesthetics I tend to favor. However, I'm now reading that compared to earlier performers, the Busch Quartet was actually notable for _increasing_ use of vibrato and heavy/forceful attack, and _reduced_ use of portamenti... Does anyone have similar preferences to my own, and/or recommendations of string quartets that align with what I'm looking for? I am guessing these would mostly be either similarly early recordings, or from the HIP movement.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Try the earlier mono recordings from The Budapest Quartet. From more modern quartets, the sprightliness you’re looking for may well be there with The Tokyo Quartet, The Amadeus Quartet and possibly Cuarteto Casals. If you’re interested in Beethoven try the new set of op 18s from the Eybler quartet, who seem to me to incarne some of the virtues of the early Budapest performances.

My own favourite early quartet is the Calvet quartet, so I can’t stop myself mentioning them to you.


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Try the earlier mono recordings from The Budapest Quartet. From more modern quartets, the sprightliness you're looking for may well be there with The Tokyo Quartet, The Amadeus Quartet and possibly Cuarteto Casals. If you're interested in Beethoven try the new set of op 18s from the Eybler quartet, who seem to me to incarne some of the virtues of the early Budapest performances.
> 
> My own favourite early quartet is the Calvet quartet, so I can't stop myself mentioning them to you.


Thank you - I am particularly enjoying the Eybler and Calvet so far, and had never heard of either!


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

As Mandryka so rightly says the Cuarteto Casals may well be right up your street, the Calidore quartet, the Auryns or even the the Kuss quartet (check out their Schubert / Berg disc)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

cheregi said:


> Thank you - I am particularly enjoying the Eybler and Calvet so far, and had never heard of either!


The Calvet op 131 is one of my favourite Beethoven recordings.


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> The Calvet op 131 is one of my favourite Beethoven recordings.


I'm listening to it now, and I can see why - it's definitely more enjoyable than the few other Beethoven 131 recordings I've listened to, I think at least partially because Beethoven's late quartets benefit so much from, on the one hand, each instrumental line prioritizing its own horizontal forward motion at the expense of verticality (via, of course, those aggressive glissandi, which embarrassingly I had erlier confused with portamenti), and, on the other hand, the extra crunchiness of the dissonances on account of the somewhat-reduced vibrato (compared to contemporary recordings I've heard). Does this line up with why _you_ so appreciate this recording, or are my current stylistic preoccupations coloring my perceptions too much?

Also, just as a side note, what initially got me interested in these recordings was listening to Phantasm Consort and other viol groups and wondering why they so aggressively privilege verticality over horizontality when the music seems to suggest otherwise, and then down the rabbit hole of variations in string instrument performance practices... But I wonder if that has more to do with the restrictions and limitations of viols than anything else?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Re viol consorts, maybe a more horizontal approach has been most explored by the Canadian group Les Voix Humaines. Their phrasing is also interesting.


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## blakeklondike (Oct 28, 2020)

+1 for Budapest String Quartet-- the tonal quality of their recordings is great, as well.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

An interesting example of a style of playing no longer heard is the disc reissue of several really old performances from early 20th c. by the Flonzaley Quartet.


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

MarkW said:


> An interesting example of a style of playing no longer heard is the disc reissue of several really old performances from early 20th c. by the Flonzaley Quartet.


Flonzaley is the group that led me to Busch which led me to start this thread! I love their technique and was initially wondering if there was a whole world of similar recordings if only I knew where to look.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Have you tried the Pro Arte Haydn?


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Have you tried the Pro Arte Haydn?


Oh this is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for, thanks.

I think Flonzaley still reigns supreme for me in this department - sometimes their performances sound almost queasy in a Graindelavoix-esque way, which isn't something I ever expected to think about an early 20th century string quartet. But these other recommendations do come close as well, and of course are extremely compelling in their own ways.


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Sorry to bump my own thread, but I've just discovered the Eroica Quartet, which starting in the 90s made some recordings in collaboration with musicologist Clive Brown, a strong proponent of bringing portamenti, expressive (rather than constant) vibrato, rhythmic looseness, and an overall much more 'improvisational' spirit back into performances of Romantic repertoire, as can be heard in early 20th century recordings and as is documented in 19th century writings. Brown very compellingly advances the argument that total fidelity to the score (in the sense not only of following all the score's instructions but also of doing nothing _outside_ of the score's explicit instructions) is an extremely recent phenomenon, like, maybe 1920s onward, and Romantic-era composers would be shocked by the lack of imaginativeness of most current performances of their work.

Even many positive reviews of Eroica Quartet recordings comment on the difficulty of adjusting one's hearing to the quartet's looseness or roughness, but I really can't hear their style as anything but beautiful, and clearly better suited to the music than stiff modern-style performances:






Does anyone else agree? Vehemently disagree? And, perhaps most importantly, does anyone know of other contemporary quartets experimenting in this direction?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

The Eroica have made some excellent recordings (esp. their Schumann). You might also want to check out the Chiaroscuro Quartet who play on gut strings and often stood up. The Quatuor Mosaiques and Sine Nomine might provide a sound you like too.


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Merl said:


> The Eroica have made some excellent recordings (esp. their Schumann). You might also want to check out the Chiaroscuro Quartet who play on gut strings and often stood up. The Quatuor Mosaiques and Sine Nomine might provide a sound you like too.


Thank you! Chiaroscuro and Sine Nomine are new to me and I'm very excited to check them out. Quatuor Mosaiqes have a sound I very much enjoy, with the gut strings and the limited vibrato, but they don't seem too keen on 'doing things not explicitly instructed by the score', i.e. various portamenti and disjointed rhythm between voices, and as a result hearing Eroica after Mosaiqes was almost as much of a revelation for me as hearing Mosaiqes after fully-modern sounding performances. I know Mosaiqes focuses on an earlier body of works than Eroica, but knowing what we know about the pseudo-improvisational expressivity of both the Romantic and, even moreso, Baroque eras, it's hard to imagine Classical music as an island of total score fidelity... But then again, I really don't know!


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

cheregi said:


> Thank you! Chiaroscuro and Sine Nomine are new to me and I'm very excited to check them out. Quatuor Mosaiqes have a sound I very much enjoy, with the gut strings and the limited vibrato, but they don't seem too keen on 'doing things not explicitly instructed by the score', i.e. various portamenti and disjointed rhythm between voices, and as a result hearing Eroica after Mosaiqes was almost as much of a revelation for me as hearing Mosaiqes after fully-modern sounding performances. I know Mosaiqes focuses on an earlier body of works than Eroica, but knowing what we know about the pseudo-improvisational expressivity of both the Romantic and, even moreso, Baroque eras, it's hard to imagine Classical music as an island of total score fidelity... But then again, I really don't know!


Variety - the spice of life they say.
I'm happy that we have the option to hear so many different approaches to pieces most of which work well enough with the music. Go back 15 years or so before streaming we (I) were (was) struggling to make these comparisons.

Isn't it a great time to be enjoying CM.


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Malx said:


> Variety - the spice of life they say.
> I'm happy that we have the option to hear so many different approaches to pieces most of which work well enough with the music. Go back 15 years or so before streaming we (I) were (was) struggling to make these comparisons.
> 
> Isn't it a great time to be enjoying CM.


Absolutely! As a relative newcomer to CM, I am delighted by the ability to compare between many different recordings of the same pieces.


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