American composer Samuel Barber’s best known piece is the Adagio for Strings, which is often used on sad and solemn occasions. If you saw “The Elephant Man” or “Platoon”, you heard the Barber Adagio at the end. The version we’re used to hearing was arranged by Arturo Toscanini for string orchestra in 1936 from the second movement of Barber’s Quartet. What was played in Miami was the full quartet, and the Adagio hits harder in the string quartet version. Here is a video, for which I recommend a box of tissues or three handkerchiefs.
Barber: Quartet in B minor, second movement (adagio)
The Hugo Wolf piece is sheer fun. Cellist Robert deMaine loves it.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet #8 in C minor is for hard core chamber music people, and it’s both depressing and transcendent. You have to love the modern Russians to enjoy it.
Maurice Ravel’s Quartet in F Major is one of his greatest pieces, and the Ehnes Quartet has it nailed. Back in 2003, the Seattle Chamber Music Society programmed this quartet for the first time after I had begged for it for years. Jimmy Ehnes, Richard O’Neill and Bob deMaine were the first violinist, violist and cellist respectively for the Ravel. (I forget who played second violin that night.) The performance was amazing, and afterward the musicians knew that something astonishing had happened on stage. That was the night the first seeds for the Ehnes String Quartet were planted. What I witnessed in Miami was the best performance of the piece I’d ever heard, and I told Jimmy and Bob that they needed to record it. (They’ll be recording Barber, and Shostakovich #7 and #8, live in Seattle this July.) Here is the second movement, which is an absolute blast.
Ravel: Quartet in F, second movement (scherzo)
I hope to be present for the Canteen this Friday with a new project.