Posts tagged as "gabrieli-string-quartet"

Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Shostakovich: String Quartets

March 15, 2016

Tchaikovsky’s First Quartet, Borodin’s Second and Shostakovich’s Eighth are three of the finest quartets in the Russian repertory. They reveal that Russian composers were hardly less at home in the relatively private medium of the string quartet than when writing for the more spectacular full symphony orchestra. Both the Tchaikovsky and the Borodin have received […]

Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1-3; Souvenir de Florence

March 12, 2016

Although the orchestra was the most natural vehicle for Tchaikovsky’s colourful and emotionally highly-charged music, in his string quartets (all dating from the 1870s) he showed a fine understanding of the medium and adopted a more purely musical train of thought – deriving in part from his deep fondness for the classical world of Mozart […]

Janáček: String Quartets; Suk: String Quartet No. 1

March 10, 2016

The first of Josef Suk’s two mature quartets, in B flat major, Op. 11, was partly written in Helsinki and Vienna hotels early in 1896, the last two movements being composed at home in Prague. The work which positively breathes romanticism, inevitably shows the influence of his beloved teacher and future father-in-law, Antonín Dvořák. By […]

Smetana: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

March 10, 2016

Begun in October 1876, Smetana’s E minor Quartet, ‘From My Life’, was completed by the end of the year; its first reception was lukewarm, being considered too advanced, musically and technically and too ‘orchestral’. It certainly presented the viola in a fresh light: never had this instrument been elevated to such eminence in a piece […]