Norgard: String Quartets 7, 8, 9 and 10
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Composer: Per NørgårdPerformer: Kroger Quartet
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-06-24
Music Label: Dacapo
Free Music Notes for Norgard: String Quartets 7, 8, 9 and 10
Free Music Review: Norgard: String Quartets 7, 8, 9, and 10
Hit: 5 Stars
This is my first review.
i inaugurated the second phase of my nordic string quartet study with per norgard's string quartets 1-6 (kontra qrt/kontrapunkt), and for whatever reasons, i totally disliked everything but the first early, six minute, quartet, which i thought had a fresh fresco-like quality, bold relief, and dramatic.
norgard's two late 60's quartets is what really turned me off, so i held out hope for the sixth, titled "tintinnabulary", hoping for a quartet realization of all of norgard's achievements, but i was greeted with a very rough, ugly, aggressive sounding music, and i do now wonder in this last quartet if the kontra qrt itself, and the recording, perhaps maybe along with the music were to blame.
i think the same day i was looking online and saw this cd of norgard's qrts 7-10, and sighed that now would have to get this too just to find out what he was thinking, and then thinking i could offer both on ebay!
so finally norgard's 7-10 arrives, and to be sure, the previous reviewers get all the credit. had they panned it, i would have concluded that norgard had delved further into the world of the late 80's qrt 6, and i would have ended my inquiry. but on the strength of these glowing reviews i knew norgard's quartet writing must have gone through a blossoming in the 90's, and i knew there was masterpiece quartet writing to be had.
and now i sincerely write that this entire cd is...i just can't stop listening!
after my bad experience with qrt 6, qrt 7 comes across very...enigmatic, very mature and refined, everything that norgard had been working on in the previous qrt comes on fully fledged, especially in the third movement's insistence. a certain norgard style was emerging, which takes me to qrt 9 ("into the source")...
which, so far, is the culmination of this quartet style in norgard. 9 utilizes the "tintinnabulary" style, not like the popular version, but more like xenakis' rhythmic dislocation on a steady pulse. norgard's obsessiveness, i think, had indeed taken us into the source of the sound and time in this quartet. it reminds me of the opening shot of tarkovsky's "solaris", if that makes any sense!. i do hear a lot of the distinctive xenakian rhythms, swirling...i don't know why i'm calling this true minimalism, but it seems to me that by applying the universe of ideas to simplicity equals here in norgard's music i think the transcendence norgard has always been looking for, from the micro-tonal first experiment in the obsessive 60's 5th qrt. finally the obsession has yielded a masterpiece, and it is now fair to say that the arditti have both qrts 6 and 9 in their rep.
so qrts 6, 7, and 9, form a modern arc for norgard, and now i am glad that i heard the qrt 6 first, and hated it, and have listened to it now, and i don't know if it is the kontra quartets playing, so rough and aggressive, norgard's style at the time, the music itself, and i don't recommend the cd, so...but for the sake of this review it was worth it. qrt 9 is a very exciting qrt to be written in the last fifteen years of arditti dominated super quartets by all the famous composers, another favorite being berio's "glossa", though, i digress.
this leaves qrts 8 and 10, and i think they form a pair, both titled, and both very visual, like a painting. i think both are masterpiece. the five movement 8th seems to contain the universe, mysterious melodies and harmonies, close up, far away; and yes, the fourth movement does sound like darkness descending, but all the movements have such a wealth of character and have such exciting sounds, that the entire quartet does sound like a symphony. please take these descriptions as addendum to all the previous reviewers thoughts.
and qrt 10 is like a single movement, shorter version of 8, but with a totally different idea behind it, like between quartets 8, 9, and 10 we see three totally different aspects of a mind that does seem like it is always searching. one of qrt 8's movements is named "voyage."
and now the Playing by the kroger quartet...and i don't know, the music and the playing, both, seem to be the same entity. the kroger's started with norgard after qrt 6, so with that as a dry run, norgard now had his own personal string quartet to play with. and the booklet states the groups devotion to this music, and the entire cd just reeks of love, yes, i am writing a love letter, haha. i would like to hear them, or the arditti for that matter, do qrt 6, compared to the kontra, to get a better perspective of that work.
recently i have gotten quartets by marco, boucourechliev, ohana, grosskopf, nishimura, i even have boulez' "livre pour quatuor" coming soon, hopefully,- all the arditti stuff and more, but these quartets by norgard have touched me by their all encompassing searching and humanity and their universal creativity and visionary style... not to mention the sheer joy of a spectacular quartet playing so many fun sounds!
this is the kroger's debut cd, and they are going to the head of the class...but i'm still getting rid of the old norgard!
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