Sunday, August 30, 2015

Bloch: String Quartet No. 3 (Griller Quartet)

The Griller Quartet with Ernest Bloch, 1947
About a month ago, I sprang for the recent Decca big box (53 CDs) called "Decca Sound: The Mono Years." Some real gems are rattling around in there, and one of the highlights has been the set of four Bloch string quartets played by the Griller Quartet, who were the dedicatees of the master's Third Quartet of 1952. But it struck me as I was listening to this, that the recording is different than another one that I've had on a ten-inch LP for some time, and consulting Philip Stuart's Decca discography revealed the reason why: the recording on the ten-incher was not reissued in the complete set - instead, an entirely new recording was made, even though it was a mere year later! The earlier recording, which to my knowledge has never been reissued, was made a mere five days before the British première of the piece:

Bloch: String Quartet No. 3 (1952)
The Griller String Quartet (Griller-O-Brien-Burton-Hampton)
Recorded June 16, 1953
London LS-840, one ten-inch LP record
Link (FLAC files, 63.38 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 46.29 MB)

The main difference between the two versions seems to be one of playing time: the earlier one is nearly two minutes slower than the newer one.


7 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Alternate links:

    FLAC:
    http://www.mediafire.com/download/60u2m5cysxg4hau/Griller_SQ_-_Bloch_3_FLACs.zip

    MP3:
    http://www.mediafire.com/download/wactgdyn93h2mgy/Griller_SQ_-_Bloch_3_MP3s.zip

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  3. Interestingly, WERM has (o.v. ?) for this entry. Must be quite a rarity.

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  4. Many thanks for that rare work and rare recording as well. Bloch's writing for strings is definitely interesting.

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  5. thank you for posting...the music part of the file seems to resist downloading however...

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  6. Thank you for this remarkable music. Expert musicians

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  7. How lucky Bloch was with his ensembles! Grillers, Fine Arts (a beautiful fifth), Portland and Pro Arte. What a shame his chamber music is so little played now.
    This is a wonderfully muscular reading – many thanks!

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