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| Site review by Christine Tham January 12, 2008
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This is a 'sequel' to the two disc "Voices of Modernism and the String Quartet" IsoMike release that I reviewed earlier and liked immensely. On this disc we get two string quartets by Joseph Haydn (Op. 9 No. 4 in D minor, and Op. 77 No. 2 in F major).
When I reviewed the two disc album, I referred to the Fry Street Quartet performance as 'gripping.' I am very appy to report that on this album, the players have lost none of their fiery enthusiasm. The D minor quartet almost sounds Beethovenish, which is not surprising since Haydn had already begun to adopt a quasi-symphonic structure for the Op. 9 quartets.
Interestingly, I would have expected the second quartet on the disc (Op. 77 No. 2) to be even more Beethovenish, given that it was the last quartet that Haydn wrote and dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz (later a patron of Beethoven), but it sounded quite Mozartean to my ears.
Both are excellent performances on an excellent recording, matching the sonics and excitement of the earlier album, so please refer to my review of the earlier album for further comments.
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| Review by Beagle March 9, 2006 (10 of 10 found this review helpful)
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As I opined in the discussion section, the Fry Street* Quartet + IsoMike SACDs don't need reviews, other than a deSelbian "O brave new world! Wonderful, wonderful, and again most wonderful". But convention requires more.
THE SOUND
There's a strong consensus opinion here: the sound is breath-taking. My review is of the stereo layer, but note Darwin's "The center imaging is convincing despite being 4.0". You can hear a pin drop, and so you listen in hushed silence. It is a slight exaggeration, but I feel as if I could trace the outline of the instruments in the air. It is not an exaggeration to say that one hears the finest nuance of pianissimo bowing and those split-second adjustments of tone which go to create 'ensemble'. One would hear the 'okay, let's go...' breath signals of primarius to crew, had not the Frys graciously chosen to communicate with looks rather than snorts (check out the killer-looks in the liner notes of the Fry Debut CD!). What one does hear is exquisitely bowed strings, which brings me to...
THE MUSICIANSHIP
These recordings would be remarkable even with so-so musicianship, but the extreme IsoMike fidelity would place a terrifying spotlight on any mediocrity. Fear not, the FSQ is a most fortunate combination of talents. Mere talent is cheap in major urban centres; what is most fortunate here is that Jessica, Rebecca, Russel and Anne are like-minded and compatible geniuses**. I very much like the balanced egos of first- and second-fiddle, and I have a hunch that the cellist is a major player in musical decisions. Given the inherent inaudibility of the modern viola, I must applaud Russel for his success in pushing his reticent instrument into hearing range. I especially like the twin illusions they create of (1) seeming faster than a competitive recording when in fact they are playing slower, and (2) seeming more leisurely when in fact they are cutting minutes off the record time***. How do they do it? Appropriately there is a light touch to the Haydn, but there is no lack of force in the Stravinsky and Rorem of Modern Voices, disc-2.
Mea culpa: I can only blame myself for not having encountered this foursome's exquisite musicianship earlier, but I just wasn't anywhere near in '01, when they wowed them at Carnegie. If recognition keeps pace with musicianship, then move over Takács, look out Prazák.
THE MUSIC
My pet peeves are backwards-orders and disparate-pairings of works on discs, but I can't complain about the two Haydn pieces paired here, nor the two Beethoven pieces paired on disc-1 of Modern Voices****. In both cases, the chosen quartets serve as genuine milestones in the musical trajectory of the composer. For Haydn and his friends, quartets were a private alternative to the public symphonies, but if you look closely I think you might see the foundations of The Great Romantic Symphonies being laid out in these works (e.g. Bruckner). One can embrace or discard later composers, but Haydn lies so close to the jugular of western music, he in inescapable.
The Haydn disc starts with a significant member of "the first true quartets": the first in a minor key (op. 9 was also the first 'set of six', all in different keys). Late in life, F.J. asked his publishers to renumber his quartets, starting with op. 9 as "opus one", saying that op. 9 and 17 were "the first true quartets" he'd written, thus dismissing the real op. 1 and op. 2 and op. 3 (which he claimed to have written, but didn't write). Although still technically titled a "Divertimento", op. 9/4 is surprisingly 'advanced', when viewed from our post-Beethoven point in time. It sounds like Beethoven might have written it: brooding and heart-felt 'Sturm und Drang'. It may be that really good composers never sit well in one musical era; behold Haydn, obsequious sycophant in court all day, troubled Romantic genius by night.
The disc closes with Haydn's last completed quartet, op. 77/2. Not a 'famous' quartet (e.g. Sun, Emperor, Lark, Ritter, Frog...) but a masterful statement of mature musical thought. If themes were tossed off a penny a dozen in earlier years, single themes now are savoured and turned about and viewed from all aspects. And the overall structure possesses symmetries suggestive of the gigantic arches Bartók would later build. Architecture aside, it's grand music, 'regal' might not be a false adjective.
Thank you Ray Kimber, thank you FSQ, and thank you Papa Joe.
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* "Fry Street is a little street in Chicago where our quartet was born in 1997. The street was about 20 yards long, and it was not on our street map, so we claimed it for our own...".
** A post-debut change of primarius has done them no harm.
*** Haydn Op. 9/4: Kodály Qtt 18:17 vs FSQ 16:20.
**** Opp 18/5 and 132, reviewed Mar 14.
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| Review by Oakland September 1, 2006 (7 of 7 found this review helpful)
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I’ll just cut to the chase and say that while string quartets are not the genre I reach for first, the wonderful playing and musicianship on this Fry Street Quartet coupled with the extraordinary engineering employed to capture the performance has excited me greatly.
I purchased this Fry Street Quartet’s performances of the Haydn String Quartet’s on Kimber Kable a couple of months ago when, around the same time, I purchased that label's Joe McQueen’s “Ten at 86”. See my comments at /showreviews/3957#3815. But in spite the absolute treasure I have found the McQueen disc to be, both in terms of performance and sound quality, I deferred listening to the Fry Street Quartet recording until just this week. Because truth be told I am not a string quartet kind of guy. I do enjoy an occasional string quartet, especially Haydn, and even have a few in my collection. But given the choice I will most always spin Romantic orchestral pieces or organ compositions, my fledgling but growing jazz collection or my music from my extensive R&B collection before I will take in an occasional chamber music disc.
But as an event videographer, I have had in recent weeks the opportunity to attend and record several events in which string quartets were performing in a variety of venues. These live experiences, including one this past weekend prompted me to move the Fry String Quartet recording up the queue of the yet two dozen or so unopened CDs and SACDs in my collection.
Based on the live sound of string quartets that I have had the opportunity to listen to and videotape in recent weeks I can say that unequivocally that the sound on this SACD is top tier, as close as I have ever experienced to a live reference, albeit not a direct A/B comparison. (Hey, I realize people wear out the “live reference” comparison thing, but this time it’s true). In fact, I have never heard a small group recorded so vividly, so life like, so dynamic. And if I said much the same thing in my comments about Joe McQueen’s “Ten at 86”, well excusez-moi, but the Isomike audio engineering employs the same techniques with a group of about the same size. What I did say about the McQueen disc, ”The more I listened to the sound the more it became apparent that, with respect to quality, something was undeniably different here. The music was so completely “unsmearing”, presented with a sunlit clarity when compared to the vast majority of recordings I have heard, even “good” recordings….” And this applies equally with this Fry Quartet recording. This recording brilliantly captures the meticulous enunciation of the instruments, particularly the full range of the cello, without at all being spotlighted.
I’m not qualified in anyway to comment on the technical aspects of the performances. But living in the San Francisco Bay Area I have had the great fortune to experience numerous gifted musicians and quartets over the years. Plus I have own a few of the “name brand” quartet recordings. I view the musicianship of the Fry Street Quartet as among the best, certainly when playing these Haydn compositions. An immediate distinction of their musicianship, even for the uninitiated, is that of faultless precision.
To be sure, the two-channel version of this Fry Street Quartet SACD sounds magnificent. But I firmly subscribe to the belief that anything (man-made) can be improved. And if ever that axiom was true look no further than the multi-channel (4.0) version of this disc. It’s one of those situations while when listening in two-channel that you say to yourself how could this possibly get much closer to the live string quartets that I had been recently experiencing. Then you switch to the multi-channel layer and say to yourself “Ooo, this *is* closer”. But at the risk of contradicting myself the surround speakers seems subtle and may not always be apparent. In fact, the surround speakers are sonically invisible at the listening position, even though they are working pretty hard. So, why is something that seems subtle on one-hand makes a significant sound improvement as to bring it closer to what I had experienced live on other hand? Don’t ask me. I guess a little can go a long way. Try leaving out that “dash” of an important ingredient in a gumbo recipe. They say there is only a 2% DNA difference in the make up between man and chimp. Go figure. Besides, I’m still trying to sort out this Pluto demotion thing. (Hey, Holst was right after all!)
But make no mistake, whether two channels or 4 channels this disc is a triumphant success both for performance and for sound.
(As an experiment I decided to measure [very roughly] the decibel levels of this Fry Street Quartet recording. Nothing particularly surprising was uncovered but perhaps its good to note it. Measuring from my listening chair with my Radio Shack meter, C weighted, the 4th movement (Finale) of OP. 77, No. 2, I first measured the front two channels with the surrounds disconnected. I then measured the two surround channels with the two front channels disconnected. I then measured with all four channels. Of course, the volume control on the line stage remained unchanged with all three measurements) I should note that before I made any measurements I double checked to make sure that the audio levels for each speaker were where they should be using the Philips Multi-Channel Sound Reference Disc).
(With the two front channels going the decibel levels were largely in the high 70’s to mid 80s, with occasional peaks at 88, 92 and the final notes at 96 or 97 db. [So, clearly there is eveidence of great dynamic range here].The surround channels with the fronts turned off measured about 6 or 7 db lower throughout the movement with the final notes [peak] being about 6 db lower than with the front two speakers going alone. So, by no means were the surround channels "quiet"; on the contrary, much of the times they were pumping out 80+ db. But they are never “heard” from the listening position. Most noticeable was that the sound with the rears playing alone was diffuse, as if out of phase, and lacked the abundant power of the lower register of the cello.)
(Clearly, as with most multi-channel SACD classical recordings I have heard the front speakers carry the brunt of the low-end work. [This is not necessarily the case with popular and jazz multi-channel discs]. And as far as I can tell the overall loudness is not at all influenced by the surround channels because when I played all speakers the music levels seem to track the results of the front speakers playing alone. And this would seem to make sense because if I understand it correctly if two speakers are playing at a given loudness level and you add two more speakers playing at the same loudness level then you would increase loudness by 3 db and no more. Since, in this case, the surround speakers were playing at appreciably lower levels [6 db less], but *clearly* audible [although never from the listening position when all fours were playing] and sometimes “loud” on peaks it is probably safe to say the surround speakers had no measurable effect on overall loudness).
Robert C. Lang
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