Polling Beethoven's Late String Quartets

yeah I mean I would probably still argue for Mahler as G.O.A.T. and he's technically "modern" but it's the ache and pang and sweep that get me, they're what keep me going

There is a gap in my chest between Chopin and Schoenberg, where my heart should be

fucking massively underpraised

In both my estimation and my education, Bartok's string quartets are considered "the best quartets of all time" and still I agree they are yet underpraised

ha well like I say I basically only run across what I happen to be hearing about - I have no formal education, but friends talk Death & the Maiden or Beethoven or Messian, which basically shows you what kinda crowd I run w/

I wasn't belittling you! I was agreeing. You know that any mention I make of "well this is what I learned in school", it is a salted potato chip. Bartok, I think, particularly appeals to "the academy" because it's equally interesting in its formal innovations as it appeals to ethnomusicologists. Anyway, if the Emerson quartet sold t-shirts I would've worn one out

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_9LDgV0lN__U/TNqyrAI7I3I/AAAAAAAAAz0/SC719CAv3ao/s1600/Bartok%2BEmerson.jpg

A 'listening through the Bartok SQs' thread would be pretty cool because those pieces are just so packed full of incidents.

Yeah, listen to a movement a day and talk about it? Sign me up pls

you don't need to know anything about music for these to completely floor you, imo

yep. i mean, i don't know all of these as intimately as i'd like which is why i didn't vote, and i might've voted for the gross fugue anyway had that been a thing (or i should've voted for no. 14 as i am all about 14), but i know very little about music, have had very little formal training, and i experience a powerful physical reaction to this stuff

A 'listening through the Bartok SQs' thread would be pretty cool because those pieces are just so packed full of incidents.

― try a little crowleymass (Jon Lewis), Tuesday, February 12, 2013 11:09 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think i'd have much to contribute but i would definitely listen along

The best part about a Bartok SQs is that there are so few low points, if any, plus 6:iv is the jam, best six minutes of your life and mine

*a Bartok SQs thread, implying that listening to it all in sequence ends beautifully; sorry, I'm a little harried

My father is admonishing me for my "Beethoven couldn't write fugues" comment, points out the first mvt of no. 14 in c#, fourth mvt of "Hammerklavier" sonata, but goes on to say with dryness that "the gross fugue is aptly titled"

i will say my fascination with the gross fuge is akin to me staring at a lengthy math equation & marveling at the way it travels aesthetically

dry like sauternes

It's 2pm and he's retired, he's allowed.

flamboyant goon tie I don't know if I know you personally or not but either way you are cracking me up here

Grosse Fuge is amazing. So much tense, twisted beauty.

(He also told me that Shostakovich was for teenagers and he was right about that also.)

haha, i love this detail

omg @ the final allegro of the 12th - Beethoven virtually invents Blue Cheer or Killdozer or whoever for 10 seconds (twice)

'cavatina' from the 13th really bringing me to my knees this morning -- such an intense gut-punch of longing. it feels like it could have been written recently and still would be every bit as moving and fresh

timely revive - i've been listening to the 13th (and The Große Fuge) a lot the last few days. Cavatina was the final song on the voyager record, too. can't really top that, imo.