bob Draper wrote concerning Ravel's String Quartet:

>I just wish that record companies would couple it with other Ravel
>works rather than someone else's quartet.

Recordings of Ravel's quartets coupled with other Ravel chamber works are
fairly rare.  Of course, the Debussy string quartet coupling is the
traditional pairing, but most new recordings also offer a third quartet by a
third composer.

Actually, it has made sense to pair the two most popular string quartets
from France composed in the early part of the century.  The pairing likely
sells very well, and those traditions are hard to break.

The coupling I detest is a Rachmaninov 3rd piano concerto with a Liszt or
Tchaikovsky piano concerto.  I don't know why the companies seem to think
that if you like the Rachmaninov, you must also go for Liszt or Tchaikovsky.
  Do they think that all Russian composers are alike, even from different
time periods?

I do like Mahler/Zemlinsky pairings like the one that Gardiner and von Otter
put out about three years ago.


Don Satz
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