With this 2008 release, the Quatuor Stanislas completes its cycle of the six string quartets of Joseph-Guy Ropartz, in a manner more or less consistent with its two previous releases for Timpani. Ropartz was a pupil of César Franck and Vincent d'Indy, and their influence shows in the String Quartet No. 1 in G minor (1893), which was composed shortly after Franck's only venture in the genre, the String Quartet in D major, and d'Indy's String Quartet No. 1. Reflecting his teachers' fascination with the late quartets of Ludwig ...
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With this 2008 release, the Quatuor Stanislas completes its cycle of the six string quartets of Joseph-Guy Ropartz, in a manner more or less consistent with its two previous releases for Timpani. Ropartz was a pupil of César Franck and Vincent d'Indy, and their influence shows in the String Quartet No. 1 in G minor (1893), which was composed shortly after Franck's only venture in the genre, the String Quartet in D major, and d'Indy's String Quartet No. 1. Reflecting his teachers' fascination with the late quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven, the youthful Ropartz aimed for a similar expansiveness in form and depth of expression, but it is clear that he over-reached and produced a rather rambling student work that is more a labored exercise in chromatic counterpoint and sonata form than a profound revelation of genius. This cumbersome work is paired with the unpublished Fantaisie brève (1892), which Ropartz composed on a theme of his friend and fellow student, Albéric Magnard, and which has much of the same...
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