Horatiu Radulescu: String Quartet No. 5 "before the universe was born"

[@Bogdan0173]

One of the great and underestimated Romanian composers !! Superb work !

[@benjamin9901]

Fascinating piece. Thanks for sharing

[@newnairobi1]

Beautifully played with real understanding of the music. I lived in LA for five years in the 80s, attended many a Monday evening show at LACMA, heard so much wonderful contemporary music played by 1st-rate performers. Good to hear the standard still remains. :)

[@mikeg2924]

A great modernist composer, *and* a great performance. Exciting influences from composers like Xenakis, Ligeti, etc. This is the first time I've heard Radulescu and the JACK, but it sure won't be the last. Thank you, KZbin, for this playground!

[@devontipp8317]

I am a big fan of this.

[@homeystary1]

Not going to lie, I completely adore, like, the first fifty seconds of this piece, and then the violins start squealing on the high strings and I feel pain. Nonetheless an inspiring piece and composer. Really great string quartets.

[@julianking-salter8629]

sublimely beautiful

[@caoutchoucmilisec]

thank you

[@kompozer86]

Bravo! I was there and I will remember this performance my whole life! :-)

[@LukeoXx]

What a fascinating and eerie piece. Listeners will either love or hate this. Would work very well for a thriller/horror film.

[@merriman53]

Just been to a performance of this by the Jack Quartet here in Dublin - overpowering. Enescu is fine, and this is fine too.

[@genevievebauer323]

Cordes frottées, pincées, grattées, effleurées, tâtées, caressées, picorées... Horatiu a trouvé quelque chose d'autre et a même trouvé des musiciens qui savent le lire Bravo!

[@sciencmath]

While I can't say I've liked anything I've heard by Rădulescu, I find his effects and extended techniques fascinating. I might actually get some of his scores to study.

[@machida5114]

so good...

[@krakus5813]

Masterpiece!

[@notyourproblems]

sun ra definitely loves this.. :))

[@EllieMcEla]

This was really pretty wow

[@machida5114]

quite good...

[@3alexander3]

genius

[@kamishes]

Radulescu at his best. And who heard about Romania?

[@tomaszkaminski6495]

@carl bernstein It's ironic! And the blade of irony is turned towards ignorant majority of people who hardly heard about the country and know nothing about its rich and important/influential culture and science (yet it produces that great music). The word Romania could be replaced by Lithuania, Poland or Estonia :D

[@tomaszkaminski6495]

@carl bernstein So well, the joke wasn't very good (you didn't catch is because of that) but the intention was at least fair ;)

[@alperozturk700]

I'm listening to this on Spotify while I'm studying. It's hard to watch them when they trying to play those parts :d 8:14 But they are very successful.

[@vivelepalindrome]

Est-ce la description d'une ménagerie, d'une volière, de cris dans la jungle ?

[@lordathenapretty7935]

Woah, it sounds like more despite the bowing.

[@kamishes]

3 of 8 recent comments here are by Polish guys... Now you know who heard of Romania; I am a devoted friend of Romania and Romanian culture.

[@srogamina]

Absolutnie porażające

[@eccsaiya]

this is an incomparable microtonal tune. :)

[@mrtmat]

There are far too few views of this.

[@lordathenapretty7935]

But don't put this up against your ears

[@elgatosucio]

I don't understand this mix of sounds and cheap effects. Anything but music. Most of the composers create their works on paper, not even on the piano, and for what I see, this one has no idea what a bow instrument is. Just hurts my ears. It's just my opinion, I ve heard the performers before and they are excellent.

[@Pedroarom]

+elgatosucio uninformed opinion, however.

[@hockey66pat]

+elgatosucio The Composer played Violin all his life, he knew exactly what he was doing, after 800 years of the same kind of sounds and ways to hear and play the string family of instruments, in the 20th and 21st century, composers wanted to change it up a bit and help us discover new sounds.

[@SLOVENEMUSIC]

If this would have been 5-7 minutes long it would be just fine. But listening to harmonics, over ponticello playing, repetitive bowing on the same pitch for 30 minutes - boring to death. Are some composers affraid of using any memorable melody because they'd be considered conservative or they just can't do it?

[@homeystary1]

I think it's because a lot of composers just flat out don't want to use melody. Which I know is hard to believe. But I'm a composer myself (in conservatory) and I rarely ever use melody. Because in the world I'm trying to create, melody would be imposing, cliche, distracting, or even flat-out meaningless.

[@elgatosucio]

Komponist, 100% AGREE.

[@trololopeth]

"The material derives from the natural growth of sonority, from the macrostructure and not the other way round." - Gerard Grisey

[@Cleekschrey]

Wonderful piece.

[@JT29501]

K0MP0NIST Well, I think if he is trying to really represent before the universe was born, 5 minutes would be too short, but I agree musically this could be much shorter and still have the same amount of "content". It's more of a meditative excersize/concept piece to listen to. Also it doesn't make much sense to me as someone with actual physics qualifications (most artists who like to represent science in their work don't understand it too well) it makes hardly any sense based on what we actually know about pre-big bang conditions. For me a much more inventive and interesting to listen to piece in a similar style is "Zipangu" by Claude Vivier, there are some contrasting sections in there (I find the slow section to be incredibly beautiful) and some incredibly effects which I feel really keep the interest of the listener compared to this piece. But then as I said, it's not really meant to be listened to in the traditional way.

[@jonnym.1070]

How could this possibly be pleasing to the ears? There is no musicality to this! Why have composers moved away from writing classical or romantic music? This is terrible. I don't understand how anyone can like this.

[@ResilientME]

Jonny Martinez Sentimental music disgusts me and I like the exploration of new frontiers here(the harmonics.) The rythemlessness of it, this style us taking over my music collection. Sounds boring on anything that lacks resolving treble, that being any consumer audio product with a focus on bumping beats & sizzle, hence why I didn't find it sooner

[@estevaodottori]

if you want it to be pleasuring to the ears, there's no chance of missing it if you just shut up and listen like a open human being, little tiger :)

[@conceptualsoundproductions3516]

why do artists proceed and develop new forms of art? Is that your question?

[@benaraujomusic]

I actually like this music QUITE A LOT. How you fail to appreciate it is completely beyond me. Implying that no one would like it is an absolute lie. Also, I hate to break it to you, but no one writes music in the classical or romantic styles anymore. Classical music has undergone so many innovations over the past several decades, and has become more and more modern and experimental. So therefore, this music isn't terrible, but your comment is terrible.

[@karlklyder6714]

This hardly promotes Romanian music-it is unmusical. Why don't people say the truth. Enescu at least was a real composer.