In mid-2019, I came across a set of live recordings by the Juilliard String Quartet, on the music school’s web site. I reviewed Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 3 and remarked at the time on the wonderful quality of the music. The Juilliards’ brief was to perform a lot of contemporary music and there are many such instances here.
After listening to this music constantly I have decided to review a selection of the performances. You won’t always be able to buy a recording, but you can listen on the Juilliard School website. I will also link to my usual sites, Spotify, earsense and YouTube for other available versions, should they exist.
Of course, if you have a streaming audio recording program, you will be able to keep them permanently. Also I noticed that, from late 1959, access is restricted to authenticated members of the Juilliard Community. Make of that what you will, but 1951-1959 will keep me going for a while.
This collection of works is magnificent and the playing of the quartet is absolutely marvellous – I would say impeccable. Of course some pieces have been discussed here in the past, but I believe the quartet really bring a new perspective to the music.
If you wanted to sample the music, you could start now.
I don’t know how long this project will last, but I do know that it has been difficult lately finding new string quartet music that is available for purchase, and listening. I monitor the new releases closely and have a somewhat pessimistic outlook in this area. In undertaking this project, it will allow me to have a break from searching for relevant works and just focus on some fine music.
I also have an interest in early American string quartets, so I intend to concentrate on composers who were contemporaneous with these early times. Most of their works are rarely recorded, often these are the only listenable versions.
I am looking forward to getting into some fine music and hope you will too. Apart from putting the quartets in the Composer Index, I also intend to build a page as a brief introduction to the project for new arrival listeners, together with a list of all of the project links.
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