string quartets

Here’s a rave review of R. Murray Schafer’s string quartets by a blogging Florida composer and educator. I post it here because I’ve been listening to Schafer’s quartets — or the first seven of, I think, 10 now — since I heard the St. Lawrence Quartet play the extraordinary Quartet No. 3 a couple of weeks ago. Turns out they’re all extraordinary, pensive and passionate, bracingly modern but not devoid of sense for an ordinary listener. But if you’re like me, you mistrust a Canadian who tries to tell you Canadian music is good, so here’s an American, Jay Batzner: