{"id":2776,"date":"2009-06-27T17:51:45","date_gmt":"2009-06-28T00:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=2776"},"modified":"2009-06-27T17:52:12","modified_gmt":"2009-06-28T00:52:12","slug":"on-guarneri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/27\/on-guarneri\/","title":{"rendered":"on guarneri"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Portrait<\/a>
\nGuarneri Quartet – Photo \u00c2\u00a9 Dorothea von Haeften<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m out of town this week, and so have missed my chance to hear the Guarneri Quartet for one last time.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve heard some later performances, and sure, the group has succombed to the ravages of age to some extent.\u00c2\u00a0 But their musicianship has never faltered.\u00c2\u00a0 I would listen to the Guarneri foursome play late Beethoven over any other group, alive or dead.\u00c2\u00a0 In my opinion, as a person who was in the Guarneri Graduate Fellowship program at University of Maryland and saw them concertize and rehearse dozens and dozens of times, they are perhaps the finest quartet on the planet, especially at the height of their technical prowess.\u00c2\u00a0 In particular, their second cycle of Beethoven string quartets holds so many revelations and moments of breathtaking beauty – the beklemmt passage from the Cavatina of Op. 130 never fails to cause my breath to catch in my throat.\u00c2\u00a0 Arnold Steinhardt is a god.\u00c2\u00a0 John Dalley is the gold standard by which second violinists in string quartets should be judged – just pushy enough, with a rich, supportive sound, and a sixth-sense about what Arnie was about to do at all times.\u00c2\u00a0 Michael Tree, he’ll go down in the pantheon of great quartet violists – of all violists, in fact – and he’s played every piece in the literature on a giant, amazing viola that would have crippled most of the rest of us years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 David Soyer, laid down the bass line like no one else in the business, and made the most awkward passages in the repertoire sound effortless and sublime.<\/p>\n

It will be hard to imagine a world without the GQ – they’re a national treasure.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything they ever recorded is worth listening to, even if you don’t end up agreeing with their interpretive choices.\u00c2\u00a0 Because those choices make you think about what you would do, and what the composer intended, and they make the string quartet literature a canon as deep and dramatic as the complete works of Shakespeare.\u00c2\u00a0 They will be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guarneri Quartet – Photo \u00c2\u00a9 Dorothea von Haeften I’m out of town this week, and so have missed my chance to hear the Guarneri Quartet for one last time.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve heard some later performances, and sure, the group has succombed to the ravages of age to some extent.\u00c2\u00a0 But their musicianship has never faltered.\u00c2\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[136,115],"tags":[1350],"class_list":["post-2776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chamber-music","category-music","tag-guarneri-string-quartet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-IM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4121,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/26\/rip-david-soyer-longtime-cellist-of-guarneri-quartet\/","url_meta":{"origin":2776,"position":0},"title":"RIP – David Soyer, longtime cellist of Guarneri Quartet","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Color photo: \u00a9 Peter Schaaf\/www.peterschaaf.com It was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of the great cellist David Soyer today, one day after his 87th birthday.\u00a0 He was the founding cellist of the legendary Guarneri Quartet, with which he played from 1964 to 2001.\u00a0 His former student\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "cello"","block_context":{"text":"cello","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/instruments\/cello\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/38480-400x266.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1919,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/14\/sony-re-releases-8-guarneri-quartet-gems\/","url_meta":{"origin":2776,"position":1},"title":"sony re-releases 8 guarneri quartet gems","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Sony Classical has released eight classic Guarneri Quartet albums (as mp3 downloads on both iTunes and Amazon.com) to honor the quartet's farewell season, which concludes in June 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of these have not been available (except on used LP) for years, and are a welcome addition to any chamber music\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1426,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/13\/guarneri-violinist-has-cancer\/","url_meta":{"origin":2776,"position":2},"title":"guarneri violinist has cancer","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[L-R] John Dalley, Michael Tree, Arnold Steinhardt, David Wiley Photo credit: Dorothea von Haeften David Stabler reported today that John Dalley, the second violinist of the Guarneri Quartet (which is in its last season as an ensemble this year), has been stricken with cancer. John really has been the drive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo credit: Dorothea von Haeften","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/press-4442-400x310.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6495,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/05\/27\/mozart-grumiaux-perfection\/","url_meta":{"origin":2776,"position":3},"title":"mozart + grumiaux = perfection","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 As I was listening to a portion of the Kairos Ensemble rehearsing for tonight's upcoming benefit concert for Portland's Phame Academy, I was struck (again) by just how great Mozarts quintets for strings (two violins, two violas, and cello) are. They are doing his great D major, K. 593\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/mozart-01.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":383,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/07\/10\/officially-hot\/","url_meta":{"origin":2776,"position":4},"title":"officially HOT!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's only 2:55 in the afternoon and we've reached the century mark - the latest forecast predicts 102\u00c2\u00baF by 5:00 p.m. Thank goodness for the two window air conditioners we bought a few years ago - I remember sweating through the hot weeks of July and August in our dank\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"hot1.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/hot1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":775,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/13\/alban-berg-quartet-begins-final-season\/","url_meta":{"origin":2776,"position":5},"title":"alban berg quartet begins final season","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Alban Berg String Quartet With the Guarneri Quartet playing its final concerts this Spring, the Alban Berg Quartet is beginning its final season's worth of concerts this season as well. A good article from the Times of London on the internal life of the string quartet. There's really nothing like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"alban_berg_finalv1.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/alban_berg_finalv1.thumbnail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}