Don Satz has been picking my mind:

>The ARG reviewer was of a different mind.  "His themes fall only slightly
>below those of Beethoven in their memorability.  There is real inspiration
>here and a distinctive cast that makes one wonder why they aren't played
>more often.....
>
>My opinion is very much along the lines of the ARG reviewer.  I bought
>the DG [Melos] set a few years ago and have played them often.  I don't
>find them "cold and brittle".  They are interesting, relatively complex
>for the time period, and loaded with fine melodies which grew on me with
>time.  Although I had no recorded alternatives to compare them to, I
>thought the Melos did an excellent job; recorded sound was a little
>brittle, but "adjustments" took care of that problem.

I am going to murder Satz.  There aren't two people on this bawd who
are at opposite ends of the poles (or even the Estonians and there isn't
much territory in Estonia to separate people) as Satz and me.  We have
instinctively decided to ignore each other.  Yet we are cursed with each
other, like inmates put in the same 4x8 cell.

"I know!  I know!  You don't have to go on and one.  I get it!" If you
don't interrupt you are pedant because everyone knows what the others are
going to say before they finish their sentence.  Language here is lumbering
compared to the music.

I have been thinking for months of asking WHERE IS THE RECOGNITION OF
CHERUBINI'S QUARTETS HERE OR BY THE SCHWANN?

Since I have hung around/by this bawd, I have not heard a word about
Cherubini's six quartets.  Nothing reminds me of Beethoven's last quartets
quite as much.  Not that they are in the same league mystically, or maybe
they are.  But like the Beethoven they are real conversations.  Once a
conversation gets going, intimates don't waste their time exchanging
complete sentences.  One person opens his mouth and the others already
grasp his entire message.  They have no need to be literal.  They sound
like husband and wife who have lived with each other too long; all they
need to fight, bring a smile, or a shrug is a nudge.  The Cherubini share
the sense we get when listening to the Beethoven that there is something
spiritual, something transcendent going on here.  This isn't literal; it is
poetic.  Like the late Beethoven, they imply more than they say and only a
pedant needs it all spelled out.

Unlike the Beethoven, the Cherubini cycle does not break with the
conventional movements, but it does in the sense that the six are of a
whole, beyond time and syntax.  You might start the cycle with any of the
six.  From the first they are full-blown and part of a whole.

Not being inclined to musicology, I don't know if there is any evidence
that Cherubini was consciously emulating Beethoven.  But I think he gets
closer to grasping important elements in the late quartets that frightened
far better composers for a hundred years.

Amen to the Melos.  Unfortunately, all I have is one of two homemade
cassette tapes of the six.  They were issued by DGG and were at the time
thought important enough for Gramophone to review.  The reviewer was
ecstatic.  He wrote that the Melos played the quartets as if they were
their own.

O.K., Satz you broke the ice first.  Next time it's my turn.  And why can't
you be more "like a Carlan."

>[I'm with Don on this one.  I've enjoyed the Melos recordings for years.
>-Dave]

I never thought I'd live to the day when Dave agreed with me.  Well, he
is exactly following in my footsteps.  I appear to be following in his.
I was just too lazy to post it first.  [I wasn't agreeing with you, I was
agreeing with Don.  If I had known how you felt, I would have been far more
circumspect.  -Dave]

Andrew E. Carlan <[log in to unmask]>
Standing Up For Nielsen (See even I know there's more to the world than
Nielsen, although not much more)