#string quartet music

[mikrokosmos]

Franck - String Quartet in D Major (1890)

It's been a long time since I updated this blog with a new post. Too long. And to be honest it's been a tough year for me personally. I've gone through different kinds of losses and had lost enthusiasm for this hobby of writing about music. Today was a pretty rough day emotionally and, if I'm allowed to use cliches, music "saved" me. At least this quartet brought me back into a music mindset, and I don't write about Franck that often here. Main reason is that, despite his esteem as a major or great composer of the later 19th century, his reputation relies on a handful of works from much later in his life. This String Quartet was his last completed work and it shows the hallmarks of his self-realized style; very lyrical and melancholic, constantly modulating and flowing through a stream of tonality. He had completed this after studying quartets by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. Especially from Schubert is where we get unexpected modulations. Ironically this last work was the first to get him praise during his lifetime. And as with his other major works, the quartet is cyclical, with themes from each movement returning in the finale. And I hope this music lifts your spirits as well to end off 2023

Movements:

Poco Lento, Allegro

Scherzo: Vivace

Larghetto

Finale: Allegro molto

[heart-of-a-rebel16]

People who don’t watch rebels because they think it’s ugly can choke on this shot specifically

[glassesfreekjr]

FOR REAL THIS TIME

The King Salmonid who all Fish Sticks aspire to be. The first Griller to surpass their mortal coils and ascend to a state far more... eldritch. A grotesque autonomous collective and yet a ruler in its own right. The aquatic roi des rats of the whirlpool's roil, whose name shall not be uttered. The worlds worst maypole by far, 0/10.

And yet there are sea creatures far worse, and far scarier, out in the unknown depths... beyond the splendour of the tempest; the sandbank’s luring smile. Encircled by flopping hordes of mindless and amorphous dancers, lulled amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

Waiting for their moment.

(Rough concept art courtesy of @zenders-art)

[gasparodasalo]

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) - Unfinished String Quartet in d-minor, Op. 103, I. Andante grazioso. Performed by L'Archibudelli on period instruments.

[eawai-osc]

You can listen to my previous cover arrangements here: #my covers

[higherfriends]

First string quartet out of a series I’m currently writing. Reflecting on life seasons, the nature of existence and love. 🎻🥀

[blackswaneuroparedux]

It must be a sign of talent that I do not give up, though I can get nobody to take an interest in my efforts.

- Fanny Mendelssohn

The Mendelssohns grew up making music together in Berlin at the beginning of the 19th century. Felix, younger by four years, became one of history's most brilliant composers. Fanny, a strong-willed pianist but worried about her worth as a composer, has been neglected. Still, as Felix's career soared and Fanny struggled to publish her pieces, the two remained close. Early on, Fanny helped Felix with structuring some of his pieces. Later, Felix was supportive of his sister but, like their father, discouraged her from actually publishing her music. Fanny wrote a String Quartet in E-flat major in 1834. Despite this and other than playing and conducting in salon settings, Fanny made just one public appearance, as soloist in her brother's First Piano Concerto at a benefit concert. Very little of her music was published in her lifetime, and much of it today remains privately owned.

Fanny died suddenly of a stroke at age 41, in 1847. She died in Berlin of complications from a stroke suffered while leading a rehearsal of a cantata by her brother Felix, "The First Walpurgis Night."

Felix was crushed. You can hear the pain he poured into the String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, completed in September of that year. Felix Mendelssohn's music is always a joy. He was an optimist by nature. But in this quartet you feel immediately that there's something strange. You will be shocked by music with so much power and drama, and violence. Indeed Felix referred to the quartet as his "Requiem for Fanny." He would die two months later, at 38, after a series of strokes. He was buried next to his sister in Berlin in 1847.

Composers can't fully develop their gifts without the freedom of ambition that fuels the required effort. Even Mozart took years to hit his stride. The notion that Fanny Mendelssohn could've become a major composer if she'd been free to pursue that goal isn't far-fetched at all. Indeed it’s tragedy her gifts were never allowed to see the light of day. I like to think Felix probably in part felt the same in not just losing a beloved sister but also a wonderful gifted composer.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Hi! Love your blog, you’re the heart of the fandom. ❤️ I came across a snippet of news about music in the new season that is barely anything but made me excited anyway, so I thought I’d share the “wahoo”. :) It’s from an article about Neil’s collaboration with an Australian string quartet.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/27/1171910322/writer-neil-gaiman-debuts-his-first-music-album-with-an-australian-string-quarte

Hiya! :) Ooo, thank youu!❤❤ It looks brillant! :) Wahoo!

(link, Music-filled omens: Gaiman says he's just getting started with music. For the upcoming second season of the TV adaptation of a 1990 novel Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett, Gaiman describes an "absolutely fascinating" process of working various songs and music into new episodes.)

[nofatclips]

Waves by Naxatras (live with a String Quartet) from the EP Live in Athens. Recorded during the headlining show at Fuzz Club in Athens on 13.5.2022.

[ourpleouppy]

Excuse me for being a fucking music nerd for a moment but I fucking love string quartets written in the last 150 years or so. Composers were just doing so much incredible shit with this ensemble, this form, the textures this group of instruments were capable of.

I know I'm totally biased as a viola player, but I really think the string quartet is one of the most expressive ensembles, it strips all of the bombast of larger ensembles away and shows what a composer can really do with limited (but flexible) resources. I feel like if you really want to know what a composer is about you first check out what they've written for ensembles of 3-5 players, and ideally the string quartet.

I really do think that the 20th century string quartet is just an incredible thing though. Stretching the rule slightly and reaching back to Dvorak's and Debussy's 1893 quartets, you then see composer after composer just writing the most sublime works for this ensemble: Ravel, Bartok, Janacek, Shostakovich of course, Haas, Kurtag, Schnittke...

I'm definitely missing some great composers and some great quartets (and dear god there's definitely a dearth of quartets from women composers on that list!) but these are the ones that I'm aware of that particularly resonate with me.

I just... god, I love string quartets.

[inafever]

The Wreckers - Neil Gaiman

[pianostarinwonderland]

Yuu apparently is great at the bugle. Manifesting Musically talented Yuu. Both great with a flute and a bugle.

So interestingly, it can go either way: if you click the option where Yuu essentially says, "Oh I'm not confident..." they won't sound good. But if you click that they're good at music, then Yuu will play the bugle well.

It's intriguing that the few times we see Yuu's talents is when it's with music OwO so the flute and bugle, notably they're instruments involving the mouth. Some people have pointed out the connection between Yuu's musical talent and the twistunes, which makes me go 👁👄👁 damn it would have been cool if all twistunes involved a woodwind/brass instrument. Maybe we might see other instruments that Yuu may or may not be good at in the future though. 👀

[glassesfreekjr]

The King Salmonid who all Fish Sticks aspire to be. The first Griller to surpass their mortal coils and ascend to a state far more... eldritch. A grotesque autonomous collective and yet a ruler in its own right. The aquatic rattenkönig of the whirlpools roil, whose name shall not be uttered. The worlds worst maypole by far, 0/10.

And yet there are creatures far worse, and far hairier, out in the unknown... waiting for their moment.

(Rough sketch courtesy of @zenders-art)

EDIT: The REAL, unabridged version is called "Rattenkönig Roulette" and will be posted tomorrow (+ additional sketches!) at the conclusion of this Splatfest.

[gasparodasalo]

Johann Christian Bach (1735-82) - Piano Quartet in G-Major, André Op. 2, I. Allegro. Performed by Florilegium on period instruments.

[thesobsister]

Kronos Quartet, "The Funky Chicken"

The leadoff cut from their debut album. Which I'd never even heard of until last Friday. Very good, to start, plus it's the first branches of the musically ecumenical tree that the Kronos crew would grow over the last 50 years.

[jgthirlwell]

02.15.24 Jack Quartet play a composition by one of it's members, Austin Wulliman, on the eve of the release of Austin's solo album The News From Utopia. At Roulette Intermedium NYC.