Repertoire: The BEST Debussy and Ravel String Quartets
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- Опубликовано: 25 май 2021
- These two beloved works often appear coupled on disc, which is how we're going to consider them. Choice of recordings depends not just on the performers, but sometimes also on additional included works, whether by other French composers or pieces having a more international flavor. There's truly something for everyone. Here is a wide-ranging selection of a dozen top picks.
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Since I first I came across your videos, this is the most remarkable one as to depth and completness of the review. A short masterclass!
Wonderful recommendations of these works, although my absolute favorite is missing: The Kodály Quartet on Naxos. Such passionate, superbly musical, and committed music making! No weak, misty atmosphere for these guys! Their pizzicatos sound like bombs going off!
Your videos are what many music appreciation classes should aspire to.
agreed
Ah the Galimir Quartet's Ravel and Debussy! Wonderful. BTW these recordings are included in the BigBox Chamber music downloads. Mr Galimir used to come to CCNY (City College of New York) to visit and play while I was a student there.
Two amazing quartets. I have many versions of them, and each one has something to say. 🎶🎵🎶🎵😎😎 So glad I found your channel. Keep up the good work.
These are two amazing works I didn't pay attention to. Thank you!
Finally, after 3 weeks, I get a chance after my exams so sit down and watch this video! As well as being a typically great survey of recordings, this has some golden commentary on classical music in the present day for modern audiences. Thanks again David.
I hope your exams went well!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thank you! I think I did well, I guess we'll have to wait and see for the grades haha. It was always nice to have some well-curated classical music recordings to get me through
A superb video and for me you hit the nail on the head. I've had the Italiano on lp for eons and played the grooves off it years ago. So I never listen to these two works now. You've given me reason to get back at them with new ears. Incidentally, I also found a ton of food for thought in your recent choral/instrumental conductor video. There's all kinds of discussion to be had on the relationship between words and music, hopefully we'll get to it.
I realise you could have mentioned zillions of alternatives, but my personal 'best buy' of late for these works is the Stenhammar Quartet in a 2016 recording on Alba. Largely because it comes coupled with Germaine Tailleferre's quartet, which you don't get many of to the pound, and which definitely deserves an audience: of Les Six, she seems to the most often-forgotten, which seems a tad unfair from what I've heard of her output! I don't think you'd complain too much about their pizzicato technique, either. :) [Edited to correct the year of recording].
I knew you would be discussing these iconic quarters sooner or later and am very glad you did. So many performances to choose from. My first choice was always the Melos which I still have on its original appearance without a coupling, but, as you say, that’s ok. I also have kept the Sony Juilliard for the Dutilleux and have never heard it done better. Another disc I have kept is the Belcea Qt with the same coupling that is also good. I think it was their debut on CD. However, a newer disc on La dolce volta by the young Quatuor Hermes may by a whisker be my new favorite for the Debussy and Ravel, though I still prefer the Juilliard for the Dutilleux. The Hermès are so warm and the recording is first class.
Glad you like the Belcea. It's my reference recording for both quartets.
The Galimir remake is magnificent. I was blessed to play some Dvořak in one of Mr. Galimir's masterclasses when I was a student. When I bought my first CD player a year later that disc was one of the first five or six recordings I bought in anticipation of the new technology.
I first heard the Ravel quartet on a radio show called First Hearing in the late 70's featuring Lloyd Moss, Martin Bookspan, Edward Downs and Irving Kolodin. I enjoyed this show immensely!! The panel had to guess the composer, the work and any other details upon first hearing. Bookspan was always amazing, because he knew just about everything, even the performing group!! Sadly, he just passed away on April 29, 2021 at the age of 94!! Dave, I know you know this show because it originated on WQXR. One of my great memories you help bring back to my mind. Thanks so much!!
I was a panelist on the show too, in the late 80s. It was lots of fun.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Really, way to go. You would be a natural.
Great and informative video as usual Mr. Hurwitz. For precision, rhythm, vitality and great sonics I would add a recent one of Jerusalem Quartet on HM.
Great review thanks David. The Hermès quartet recorded both works with the Dutilleux quite beautifully. I would also have shortlisted the LaSalle recordings on DG. The Italiano play in a league of their own. I happen to live nearby the venue where they did some of their late Philips discs. Warner will soon reissue their EMI output with their first take at the Debussy/Ravel coupling. Looking forward to listening to it.
Agree with your preference for the RCA Juilliard. Especially nice is how intimate that recording is. Really sounds like you're right in the middle of the group. Incidentally I seem to recall them using the same microphones that Mercury Living Presence often used for their recordings.
Hoping you’ll do one on the Shostakovich quartets soon :)
The Ravel is my favorite string quartet. Take that, Haydn and Beethoven!
If you enjoy the Debussy and Ravel quartets (and who doesn’t!), I strongly recommend Milhaud’s early String Quartet no. 1, written in 1912 before he want all polytonal and stuff. It’s a gorgeously sunny and melodic work. There’s a fine recording by the Galatea Quartet on Sony, coupled with the Debussy and a work by Pierre Menu!
Just FYI, in 1996 the Orlando Quartet became the Parkanyi String Quartet (named after their inaugural first violinist who departed the Orlandos in 1984). The original second violin and violist remained in this new incarnation. They continued to make recordings mainly for the Praga Digitals label (many in SACD) and they are a very good quartet. Haven't seen anything from them for a bit though.
I’m diggin’ the lumpers vs. splitters dichotomy - if memory serves a reference from anthropology and evolutionary biology. Lump ‘em, split ‘em, do whatever you want with ‘em, these are both wonderful works, especially the Ravel. I’ve not heard most of these recordings, so I’ll keep on listening!
Talk about coincidences…I was just wondering to myself yesterday, "when is David going to do the Debussy and Ravel quartets?" And the reason why I was wondering that? Because I had been ripping some older CDs of mine to my music server, and just happened to be doing my long-forgotten copy of…the Galimir CD, which I probably hadn’t listened to in a good thirty years. Anyway, I put it on, and was shocked at how good it was; easily the equal of my currently-preferred Italiano (my "first love" in these pieces, from when I was a teenager, was the '70s-era Juilliard, which just happens to be their one stereo version that's never made it to CD). Anyway, I did a bit of research, and found that this was the Galimir Quartet's last recording, and that Felix Galimir had previously recorded the Ravel, with a different iteration of the Quartet, in 1936, with the composer present during the sessions. So, this version has a direct connection to Ravel himself, which I don’t think can be said about any other modern-era recording.
(Incidentally, from the sound of the Vlach clips you included, it would appear the Debussy is in stereo and the Ravel in mono. But the _scherzi_ are, indeed, wonderful.)
The Debussy gave me imagery of butterflies and dragonflies dancing amongst flowers in a garden. I haven’t heard Ravel’s yet but I shall.
The Galimir Quartet may not be available as a physical disc, but the individual performances are included in the downloadable bargains from The Bach Guild - The Little Big Ravel Box and the similarly named Debussy collection.
This is great, Consider a review of the best Ravel piano trio! Thank you.
You're so right about the sound Channel Classics provided for the Orpheus quartet! Debussy's quartet must be very difficult to record, because it usually sounds harsh and constricted; most brand-new recordings of it sound as if they were recorded in the USSR in 1958. The Orpheus version is the only one I've heard that really sounds beautiful to me (I'm usually just there for the Ravel, but now I'm finally enjoying its disc-mate).
Thank you for an informative and enjoyable video. The other influence on Debussy when he wrote his quartet was the Grieg quartet, an underappreciated quartet, though there are a fair few recordings. Is there any chance you might make a video on it sometime?
I talked about it as arranged for string orchestra, which arguably is what it deserves.
Grew to love the Alban Berg recording of the Ravel and Debussy. So many great recordings, but overall I'd go with the Melos.
My first listen to these quartets was with the Lasalle Quartett,
David, I recently bought both scores.
Why not add the visual to the aural ?
Of course, The Debussy and Ravel quartets tended to be coupled together because they fit nicely on a vinyl L.P. I'm also a big fan of Ravel's Piano Trio in A minor.
for a future program -- How about a retrospective of the greatest Mercury Living Presence LPs (or CDs). You have mentioned MLP performances over the past year, but I would love to hear you pick out the ones that have best survived the decades -- any that are still reference recordings. Or the best of the various "chunks," the Parays, the Fennells, etc. Perhaps a brief history of the brand and what a brilliant innovation it was. Thanks for considering this request.
I appreciate the suggestion, and love the label, but with so much of it out of print and reissues kind of, well, fragmentary, I think the best way to deal with this is within discussions of individual works or the smaller boxes (such as Kubelik's forthcoming one) containing specific discs.
I thought you would have mentioned the Guarnieri Quartets early seventies RCA recording too.
Any particular reason for not including it (or did I miss something?).
Nope. A dozen+ versions is enough.
Hi Dave, thank you for another fine video review, and of some stunning pieces. I’ve see. You sometimes create videos based on subscriber suggestions, and wonder if you’d consider reviewing the recently released Mahler Symphonies box set from the Berliner Philharmoniker - I can’t see a review on Classics Today, so wondered if you’d pass on your opinions here on RUclips.
Thanks for the suggestion. I don't have this set and, to be honest, it consists largely of conductors who are such known quantities that buying it at full price (I don't get promos from Berlin) doesn't much interest me. I've covered all the Mahler symphonies in these videos, and so I'm pretty happy with the recommendations already made.
Respect.
Isn’t funny how we only know/hear the quartets of Debussy and Ravel and extremely rarely the Dutilleux and Faure? There’s a whole slew of singleton unknowns by other French composers: Ibert (love it!), Roussel, Tallieferre, Connesson, Franck, Chausson (also incomplete, like the Faure), Thomas, Lalo, Gounod, not to mention the two late great quartets of Saint-Saens! I wish groups would branch out a little. Thanks for including the Ebene and a couple of newer groups!
I don't think this is hard to understand. The Debussy and Ravel are gorgeous works by major composers, universally beloved. The others, for various reasons, are not.
Come on David, we are all waiting for Beethovens Fifth 😄. No, it's wonderful whenever you do a talk about Debussy or Ravel!
Any opinion on the first Guarneri recording from 1973, coupled with the 1968 Weissenberg Suite Bergamasque?
Do you have an opinion about it?
@@DavesClassicalGuide I like its vigor although for impressionist works that may not be appropriate. In any event, since it's the only one in my library, I really have nothing to which to compare it. I guess I'll have to listen to some of your recommended versions to get a frame of reference. Far from a disagreeable task.
@@harrygerla6085 Exactly! Thank you for elaborating. No need to be shy about your own impressions! I will say this, though: vigor is NEVER inappropriate. These are not languorous, potted plants. Healthy, virile playing with some guts and sinew is wholly desirable. Happy listening!
Since you mentioned the great Czech string quartet tradition, could you give us a review of the two quartets by Smetana, please?
I mention them in my Ideal Romantic String Quartets video.
Yes, you did. Thanks for jogging my memory. That was an enjoyable review!
The Galimir Debussy/Ravel recording was the very first CD I played 35 years ago. So it was satisfying to see you hold it up and praise it.
My favorite recording of the Debussy and Ravel Quartets is with the old Chicago Fine Arts Quartet on a Concert-Disc LP CS 253 made by Everest Records circa 1960 or a little before, I think. They really make it sound like it means something to them. It's just great and someone should release it on CD. The recording quality is excellent with a wide spacious image for the Ravel. The Debussy might be in mono but maybe has some stereo enhancement, but it sounds wonderful, nevertheless. I am almost afraid to play it for fear of damaging it!
On CD, I have the Quartetto Italiano, which is wonderful, of course, and it's my usual listen.
I also have the recordings with the Cleveland Quartet on Telarc, which was probably my introduction to these works. The performances are very good, and the sound is excellent. But I don't listen to it much.
Any thoughts on Quartetto italiano's performance?
Please check out reviews on ClassicsToday.com.
What do you listen to music on? Speakers or headphones? Curious audiophile here
Anything.
My personal analog favourite: Italiano (Philips). My personal digital favourite: Julliard (sony)
There is a good performance of the Debussy by the Cuarteto Casals on Harmonia Mundi which has an unusual and imaginative coupling: the formidable 2nd Quartet by Zemlinsky, a dense expressionistic work modeled after Schoenberg's First Quartet. I think their Debussy would pass the pizzicato test.
Here's my theory about that extra "T" in "quartett": it's to make sure that the "et" ending wouldn't cause the word to be pronounced as if it were (Gott bewahre) ...French!
So glad you mentioned the Orlando Quartet! Happy to report there are more than "a couple" of recordings available, spread over various labels. The Dutch broadcasters are sitting on a bunch of live recordings and doing nothing with them, which is very sad.
It was a very strange quartet, as it was led not from the firt violin (István Párkányi), but from the cello (Stefan Metz). That made for an optically weird experience, and may well have been a major factor in their untimely end - after all, which premarius wants to play second fiddle to a cello?
There is a box "Dutch Masters vol 26" on Philips, which contains all their recordings for that label:
- Haydn op. 54/1, 54/2, op. 76/4 and op. 76/6
- Mozart K575, K589
- Schubert "der Tod und das Mädchen" D810
- Dvorak "American" (F op 96)
- Mendelssohn op. 12 (with un unusually slow canzonetta which - makes it totally delectable)
- Debussy/Ravel
- And then some works by Mozart with additional players, including the oboe quartet with Heinz Holliger as a stand-out
That's 6, and they're all in the 'right', original configuration of the group.
With a string (hah) of other first violinists (who all had to submit to Metz!) there are quite a few more recordings.
On Etcetera, surprisingly in a big Yuri Egorov box, Schubert's "Trout" (original members, bass player not mentioned but Anthony Woodrow would be a good guess, as he was featured a lot on Dutch radio in those days).
The following ones are all with John Harding on the first violin (and they are generally not quite as good as the Philips ones; the incredible unity, the singleminded purposefulness wasn't quite there - but it's still good!):
- On BIS, as you mentioned, the Mozart string quintets with Nobuko Imai on 2nd viola.
- On Clavigram, the Wolf Italian serenade, Schubert's Rosamunde quartet (D804) and Haydn op. 76/1.
- On Ottavo: Brahms 2nd and 3rd quartets (Harding)
- Also on Ottavo, another Dvorak "American" and Smetana #1 (Harding again)
Finally, on Emergo there are four discs with Arvi Engegard on the first violin (none of the other positions ever changed):
- Shostakovich 1 & 2
- Haydn op. 64 4-6
- Mozart K428 and K458
- Grieg's #1 and Schumnn's #1
All of these, to my ears, much closer to the original line-up in quality of playing. I may be biased, as I saw this configuration live with a Haydn quartet that eludes me (think it was the Joke) and Death and the Maiden, which was one of my finest concert experiences ever. For a crowd of about twenty people in a small provincial town...
Is that it, then? Well, yes and no. The Orlando quartet ceased to be when Engegard left. However! Enter the Pärkányi Quartet. This is the original Orlando guys, now with a different cellist: Michael Müller). They went on to make more spectacularly wonderful quartet recordings, mostly for Praga (a number of Haydn issues that is as near to perfect as it can get for me), the complete Bartók (and the one that fianlly made me hear thngs other than "just noise" (sorry (I know))) with a Leo Weiner as a bonus, Tchaikovsky (#3 and the B-Flat Major movement), Debussy and Ravel again, a Röntgen disc (remember him?!), and finally Beethoven serioso and op. 18/4 with Schibert's D 112 (#10). The last two of thoses are also on a Presenza disc, which have timing differences so slight that they are probably the same recordings. And I'm too lazy to go and listen.
Then, a few years ago now, the Párkányi quartet disbanded, to my horror. There could have been so much more...
It won't come as a surprise: I'm a fan.
I'd never have guessed. Thanks for the discography!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Goofed a bit, sorry. I don't even mean the load of typos. More importantly: the two Shostakovich quartets on Emergo aren't 1 & 2, they are 3 & 6. I really shouldn't type that sort of thing from from memory...
@@woutervandoorn6851 We all do it! Too much info to keep track of.
For me in terms of unity, a true conversation between equals and splendid sound quality the Carmina Quartet on Denon (available in cd quality download from Presto Music at £2.47) is hard to beat. Actually I"d recommend a lot of their records (their Szymanowski Quartets are sublime).
Yes, excellent, but as you note, difficult to find physical product.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Fair point - the physical media is long gone in this instance. Brilliant Classics picked them up briefly (coupled in a double disc set with the Rouvier Trio's very nice Debussy, Ravel & Faure Piano Trios) but that's listed as unavailable as well. What a sad state of affairs!
@@curseofmillhaven1057 Even knowing that physical CD availability of classical recordings is in steep decline, it was surprising to look at Amazon this morning for the Debussy/Ravel quartet coupling and find that the vast majority of recordings are out of print. If you're a CD buyer, it's less a matter of preference and more what you're able to find. This is hardly out of the way repertory.
@@Don-md6wnMy lament was mainly that a fine recording like The Carmina Quartet's one didn't last in the CD catalogue, not that there is a particular dearth of versions available (there was at least twelve on Amazon when I looked and considerably more on Presto Classical including the Orlando Quartet mentioned as a bespoke CDR from them). That said even though I'm a collector with a sizable collection of CD's I do find downloading a great way to hear marvellous performances otherwise unavailable.
David, I think Inge and her merry band of string playing enthusiasts and sycophants, think very highly of the Galimir Qt. recording
Now I can sleep at night!
I love how neither the Debussy or Ravel quartet sounds remotely Impressionistic lol
I have always felt that the Debussy could have worked every bit as well as an orchestral piece. Just a thought.....
OK, the story about the woman who only wanted Beethoven's 7th Symphony. She sounded like she needed a therapist. How about this for a solution: just listen to the 7th Symphony and not whatever else is on the CD. There's the answer.
Be nice, now. She didn't want to pay for what she didn't want. That's a very common position.
The "I only want what I want" is why I'm not a buyer of those huge conductor/soloist/chamber ensemble box sets even when they're priced at $2 or $3 per disc. The time investment of listening to mostly good but not great performances of repertoire I already have, usually in multiple other versions that were picked at least somewhat carefully, just isn't worth it to me. I don't want to look at a big box sitting on my shelves for years knowing that I've listened to 20% of it.
Fair enough!
I’m a CCC
I've noticed.
Bruno box just arrived dude it’s beautiful package I mean the box amazon deal can’t wait to listen startin of with his bruckner thank you for enrichin my listening life Mr Hurwitz!
No digital for me man! my son looked at my wall of CDs and offered to download them all. I told him if you touch those you’re out of my will
@@douglashuntington408 That is hilarious. I would let him do that for you!!...Trust me, it is so easy to have all of your music digital for the car etc...and iTunes in terms of finding the music so easily. But be warned, it takes hours and hours and hours to do it right :)
I take the Italiano on Philips any day. Philips had bought Mercury, the best recording sound and It is great to hear and so their earlier EMI recording disappeared forever. There is still the Calvet recording from 1937 and even a Budapest quartet recording. I heard, that the Hollywood quartet, one of the best quartets ever, did them, so this has to be the best recording never made after EMI bought Capitol.
Both quartets remind me a lot of the two quartets by Borodin which everybody knows from the recording by the Borodin quartet.
Far be it for this Philistine to argue with Goethe, but in truth the more frequent comment or observation made about string quartetTs (^-_-^) is that they are the equivalent of 4-way marriages with all of the disadvantages and none of the benefits. Hehehe... The piquant claim that the sole female member of the Quartetto Italiano supposedly married (sequentially or consecutively, of course, not concurrently!) and then divorced the other members of the group; does that reinforce, or contend with, the witticism above-?~
Since you bring up downloads, how about a commentary/rant on the segmentation of downloads of continuous pieces, often producing sonic dead spots or "stutters" between segments. You commonly hear this with downloads of pieces such as Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloé," the Mussorgsky-Ravel "Pictures at an Exhibition" (sometimes with the piano version, too), the Beethoven Fifth (scherzo to finale) and many theme-and-variations pieces, orchestral and piano - really, any music in which one section smoothly segues or resonates into the next. It's infuriating and, more often than not, unnecessary. A 20- to 30-minute digital file is not a technological stretch, either to produce or play back. So why do the labels chop up music this way?
I agree, it's infuriating, but there's nothing we can do about it at present. They do it because they operate on a paradigm of "songs" divided into "tracks," and that's how everything is designed. This would never have happened in the "index" feature on original CDs had been adopted universally, but it wasn't, and now we're screwed.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Well, some of us just rip tracks off a CD and then re-assign them to 'compositions' as logic sees fit. Some of us have even written software to make it easier to do. It's a pain to have to do it, even so; worse, the metadata available via assorted Internet sources to describe each 'track' is universally terrible, so there's a lot of re-typing to be done. But no-one need live with the record companies' decisions these days, thankfully.
Nearly all my music purchases over the last five years are in the form downloads (including a few examples of Pictures and Daphnis). I have never had this problem. It could however be an issue with MP3 files - which I never purchase.
@@willx9352 What problem have you not had? It's not clear what you are referring to. I never buy MP3s, either, only FLACs. Their record company-supplied metadata is always wrong, too.
@@dizwell I have not had the stutters between tracks. I was responding to the comments of Clarke Bustard.