This is an excellent point.  A long time ago, before I acquired a taste
for chamber music, I'd heard musicians discuss the string quartets, and
that the composers who'd done the most with the form were Beethoven and
Bartok.  Since I'm partial to 20thC music anyway, I plunged right in with
the Emerson set of the Bartok pieces.  I have to admit that I could follow
very little.  It wasn't until I had become quite familiar with the
Shostakovich quartets that I was able to appreciate how much Bartok
expanded the vocabulary of the form.

"John Cambre" <[log in to unmask]>