Bartok: the String Quartets

Featuring

Arnold Steinhardt
John Dalley
Michael Tree
David Soyer
Guarneri Quartet
Béla Bartók

Did you know?

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Bartók believed that 'race purity' in music led to musical poverty, and that the richest folk music is enriched by contact with other cultures.

Performer Biography

The Guarneri String Quartet, the performers on this album, retired at the end of the 2008-09 season after 45 years of performing and recording.

Compositional Technique

The Fourth and Fifth String Quartets by Bartók display a five-movement form in an arch-like arrangement, where the outer movements share material and the third movement acts as a fulcrum.

Composition History

Bartók's First String Quartet was in gestation at the same time as his posthumous Violin Concerto and shares an important melodic motive with its second movement.

Compositional Technique

From his Second Quartet onwards, Bartók showed an unprecedented interest in extending stringed-instrument techniques, demanding unusual multiple stops, unorthodox fingerings, and various types of pizzicato and glissando.

Recording & Production

This album features all six of Béla Bartók's published string quartets, recorded in New York City between 1974 and 1976.

Composer Biography

Béla Bartók deleted all works written before 1903 from his catalog, not wanting them played or published, including an early string quartet from 1898-99.