May 18 Playlist: String Quartets

Tonight's program, and probably for those for the next few weeks, will be all about String Quartets. Early on in my composing career, I went through a massive string quartet fetish phase where I sought out every string quartet that I could find that was worth listening to. I listened to Beethoven's, Bartok's, Shostakovitch's, Schoenberg's, Webern's, Bergs (Lyric Suite anyway), then came across the New York School's work (OK, that's a bit of a lie as I actually started with them and worked backwards and sideways, but more on that later)....of course I discovered Scelsi, Xenakis, Penderecki, Estrada, Pape, Saariaho, and others too. Oh, and let's not forget Ives, Cowell, Carter, Crawford-Seeger, and all the other Yanks as well!

So, we will be listening to many (not all, just not that many weeks in a year I'm afraid) of these over the next few weeks. If you're into string quartets, May and June are your months on the Fog!

1. John Zorn, Forbidden Fruit, on Kronos: Winter Was Hard.
2. Earle Brown, String Quartet No. 1., on Earle Brown DVD: Chamber Works
3. Kaija Saariaho, Nymphea: Jardin Sectret III, on Arditti String Quartet from Scandinavia
4. Bill Thompson, String Quartet No. 1., played by Imbroglio String Quartet, Unreleased
5. Live At Axiom 2002, Track4, String Trio (James Alexander, Brent Fariss, Travis Weller), Unreleased
6. Gerard Pape, Le Fleuve du desir 1994, Ardititi String Quartet, on Electroacoustic Chamber Works
7. Julio Estrada, , on Arditti String Quartet Edition No 27-Julio Estrada
8. Live At Axiom 2002, Track4, String Trio (James Alexander, Brent Fariss, Travis Weller), Unreleased