I am among those who put these quartets on the very, very highest level
of any music -- so that will put my responses in context, perhaps.

Edward Janusz wrote:

>I didn't enjoy the music; neither did I dislike it.  It didn't all sound
>the same, but it _felt_ the same.  I keep wanting to use words like
>"angst," "anger," "alienation." Yet I don't think these are the right
>ones.  I didn't feel angry or alienated when I left. I'm not sure that
>I really felt _anything_.

Any one of them is a lot to manage to hear, so all-at-once sounds like
a performer's swashbuckling, but not so good for a listener.

>From the program notes to #2:
>
> "In it the four instruments are individualized, each being
> given its own character embodied in a special set of melodic
> and harmonic intervals and of rhythms that result in four
> different patterns of slow and fast tempi with associated
> types of expression.  Thus, four different strands of musical
> material of contrasting character are developed simultaneously
> throughout the work.  It is out of the intereactions,
> combinations, cooperations, and oppositions of these that the
> details of musical discourse as well as the large sections
> are built."

Number 2, to me, is THE SINGLE WORK in all of musical literature that
manages to express humanity, or at least humanity-as-communication, by
sounds instead of speech.  Far more than Ligeti's Aventures, for example,
where the performers effectively improvise their wordless humanity,
Carter somehow puts it into the pitches and rhythms.

>I guess what I want from this List is some contrasting opinions.
>(Of course, being affirmed that I really am a good person would be OK,
>too <grin>.) Have Listers listened to these string quartets and gotten
>something out of them?  Is the formal exercise -- the setting up of
>interesting technical challenges -- what's "there?" Have you picked
>up on a resonance behind the veils of this unfamiliar soundscape?

Number 1 is a masterpiece of structure (though it may go on too long
toward the end).

Number 3 reached the limit (always IMO) of creating a discourse through
disparate syntax, terribly hard to hear, especially live and without a
score at hand, but rewarding for every step in understanding.

Numbers 4 and 5 came after I went my own way musically, so I can't really
comment; casual listening to #4 didn't suit me as well as the first 3,
and I've never heard 5.

William Copper
composer