Polling Beethoven's Late String Quartets

I put on C Sharp Major Op. 131 this morning at 6 when aero jr & me came downstairs to the kitchen and he instantly got this "Whaaaaaa???" look on his face and stared up at the CD player (it's a boombox on the kitchen counter) like "what is that awesome sound"

good thread, ty all – these always seem kind of too-forbidding or intimidating to me, like they are the kind of thing that serious musicologist friends of mine will be extra-serious about, & I am just lost when it gets to that because I am totally musically illiterate & so don't speak the same language as them – a cheerful enthusiastic ilm thread with a few pointers is just what I needed to be pushed towards them with a less trepidatious attitude.

Glad if people could use the thread. I didn't even vote myself, I was going to figure out whether to vote for the 14. or 15. on the last day, but then I was too hungover to notice...

these always seem kind of too-forbidding or intimidating to me, like they are the kind of thing that serious musicologist friends of mine will be extra-serious about, & I am just lost when it gets to that because I am totally musically illiterate & so don't speak the same language as them

man that is the thing about them - which I wish people would stress when talking about them - you don't need to know anything about music for these to completely floor you, imo. there are a bunch of reasons why this is so but really I think anybody who likes music, literally any kind of music, could sit down with these, close their eyes, and be completely immersed immediately. They're very intense, more thrill-ride than relaxing reverie, but they're ready-to-wear to my ears - like Death and the Maiden, they just jump right out at you.

@ woof

I'm not a big fan of these quartets, either. I appreciate them for their formal beauty and historical significance. In his late period, Beethoven started using harmonic sequences and colours that sound repetitious to my ears. I assert that it's a taste thing, the way some people like V7 chords and others don't. My father always told me it has to do with age, that late Beethoven is something to look forward to enjoying, and I do. (He also told me that Shostakovich was for teenagers and he was right about that also.) But Grosse Fuge in particular is this impenetrable brick, the range of the instruments stays constant, the shifts in colour are tiny and uneffective, the material is unmemorable enough to hear it develop audibly. And it's funny that the Spohr "uncorrected" quote is so famous, bc Spohr is otm. It sounds powder-faced to use words like "uncorrected" with regards to 'great art' but it's a fugue, fugues are the most academic construction, fugues are cryptic crosswords and Beethoven is a novelist, imo.

Like I said upthread, 15 is one of my favourite Beethoven things and I voted for it. 14 was one of Bartok's favourite things and so I listen to it every year.

I love aero's capital R Romantic tastes, too, between this and his Tchaikovsky recommendations there's been a lot of new dessertmusic round my house, thank you aero

I love the almost Middle Eastern melodies in op. 131, and the scherzo (if that's right) that seems on the verge of spinning out of control but somehow stays together, and that soaring trill about halfway through the last movement.

I love aero's capital R Romantic tastes, too, between this and his Tchaikovsky recommendations there's been a lot of new dessertmusic round my house, thank you aero

I'm so genuinely exposed by this, I try to be well-rounded and I listen to a lot of early music and super-modern shit too but I'm certain I hear it all through a lens of pure romanticism. I spent late high-school badmouthing any romantics I could find but guess what Dr. Freud yr right, yr right

Like I said upthread, 15 is one of my favourite Beethoven things and I voted for it. 14 was one of Bartok's favourite things and so I listen to it every year.

man we should have a Bartok quartets listening thread because those are fucking massively underpraised in my experience. idk maybe ppl who get out more do talk about them but they were a huge revelation to me late last year

I'm so genuinely exposed by this, I try to be well-rounded and I listen to a lot of early music and super-modern shit too but I'm certain I hear it all through a lens of pure romanticism. I spent late high-school badmouthing any romantics I could find but guess what Dr. Freud yr right, yr right

This is p much me though my sweet spot and spiritual home extends through that magnif train station between late Romanticism and early Modernism, say 1890-1930. 'The Long Nineteenth Century' as they say.

Beethoven through when Stravinsky got shook, that's my shit.

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.