Word: quartets
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...presenting a two-hour concert devoted solely to the music of Ives. One is usually lucky enough to hear a program containing but one of his works, which then has to be appreciated in isolation. But here was a veritable smorgasborg of Ives, ranging from the Grieg-like First Quartet (performed by string orchestra) to the more modernistic songs and the enigmatic Unanswered Question for strings, solo trumpet, and concertino of woodwinds. The audience had the rare opportunity of experiencing Ives' music in all its ambivalence: intense and earnest yet caustic and derisive, ardently Schumannesque yet aggresively modern and American...
HAYDN: THREE QUARTETS, OPUS 54 (Epic). The Juilliard String Quartet once again displays its unsurpassed exactness of intonation and joint attack as it makes each quartet a finely chiseled gem-all without sacrificing warmth or passion, as in the C Major Adagio, with its deep-voiced Hungarian lament under the dancing arabesques of the violin...
MOZART: THE SIX QUINTETS FOR STRING QUARTET AND VIOLA (3 LPs; Columbia). In his later years, Mozart liked to play the viola; so he added a darker color to the string quartet by doubling the viola's voice. The five late quintets contain, besides the expected felicitous melodies, melting modulations and sprightly symmetries, some rich polyphony and dramatic interchanges. Walter Trampler brings his viola to the Budapest String Quartet, which is constantly updating its repertory to take advantage of improved recording techniques. This is their third recording of the quintets; they can stop...
...extra cello to Mozart's quintet, but the effect in his rambunctious opening movement is more like 60 strings than six. With its robust peasant dances, twining lines of song and sudden hushes and crescendos, Tchaikovsky's tribute to Florence is theatrical and Slavic. The new Guarneri Quartet, joined by half the Budapest Quartet, manages an almost symphonic treatment of the composer's work...
...BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS (3 LPs; RCA Victor) have recorded with zest and polish an evening of music ranging in time from Mozart's sunny, transparent Quartet in D for Flute and Strings to the late Irving Fine's romantic and unsettling Fantasia for String Trio (1957). Most fetching of the four contemporary works is Elliott Carter's Woodwind Quintet, with its light melodic fragments breezily tossed and tangled like crepe-paper streamers...