Scott Morrison wrote:

>At last!  The George Rochberg string quartets nos.  3-6, called the
>'Concord Quartets' in honor of their dedicatees, the Concord String
>Quartet, are finally released in CD format on Nonesuch 80551-2.

Scott, so glad to hear this news.  The Concord Quartets have had a
checquered history in terms of critical/public acceptance, and as one who
was deeply involved in their debut I hope this means they'll get another
hearing from people who may have written them off.

Some history of the first performance:  When my ex-husband, Benson Bobrick,
and I formed the NYC concert-presentation and p.r.  firm Woerner/Bobrick
Associates in spring 1978, our first major production a few months later
was the CSQ's Alice Tully Hall premiere of the 3 Concord Quartets.  We had
the opportunity to hear the pieces in a Hauskonzert in Philadelphia before
the big event, and were very enthusiastic about them, as was the Quartet at
the time.  So when ticket sales were slow, as they always tend to be for
mainstream new-music events, we called up everyone we knew and told them
they should come and hear this concert, that this was contemporary music we
thought they would enjoy.  Tully Hall was nearly full for the concert, and
the audience as well as NY Times critic (then chief critic) Raymond Ericson
clearly enjoyed the quartets.  Ericson wrote a glowing review.

As time went on, the accessibility and neo-romanticism of the music (this
is two decades ago) soon began to be counted against it.  Soon, it was chic
in the music press and among certain s.q.  cognoscenti to trash the Concord
Quartets, and the CSQ itself began to feel peer pressure to play them less
frequently.  (I think it was the 6th, which Scott elaborated on, that drew
the most criticism.) That whole episode seemd very sad to me, looking in on
it.  It affected the once-marvelous relationship between the composer and
the quartet (they had also commissioned his Third Quartet, one of his last
serially-oriented works, and recorded it with soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson);
and it ushered in something of a long dark night for Rochberg in terms of
the respect accorded his work in his new musical direction.  The prevailing
assessment became that the quartets were sentimental, reactionary -- yet
they were the same pieces that, on first hearing, had seemed so fresh to
many people, including among the press and other musicians.

I'm writing this post without having listened to the pieces in several
years.  (And since I have a recent knee injury I can't get upstairs to
my turntable and vinyl to refresh that memory this week with the original
recording!) Now, it will be interesting to hear them again with ears that
have been re-tuned by Adams, Glass, Corigliano, and the whole quantum CM
shift back toward recognizable tonality, melody, and the unashamed
emotional gesture.

In fact, if other listers acquire this CD (I certainly will) I'd like to
invite some dialogue on what we hear:  Was Rochberg simply ahead of his
time? How does the music stand up, more than 20 years later?

Inviting listening and listing on this subject,

Danielle Woerner
http://www.HVmusic.com/artists/danielle