Search - Silvestre Revueltas -- Cuarteto Latinoamericano :: Musica de Feria

Revueltas quartets shine

Arthur Tripp | 01/03/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've always liked the string quartet orchestration. The top composers can experiment and express themselves perfectly through any medium, and for the lesser composers, the minimal voicing makes even most of them sound interesting. In other words less gifted composers can do very nicely with a string quartet, whereas writing for full orchestra might make their work sound thin and uninspired.



Revueltas is a gifted composer. I enjoyed his quartets more than Shostokovich's, but not as much as Ives' or of course Bartok's. I liked the percussiveness of some of the work, but I would have liked to hear more of his lyricism. He needs more Ravel-- but who doesn't. There are great ideas in there, but some of the work sounds disjointed. I'm sure he was influenced by the avant garde of the day. Pointalism was stating to reveal it's ugly head. In fact guys like Carter never got away from that!



All in all, these quartets, written from 1930-32 are well worth listening to. One wonders where his musical talent would have taken him had he lived longer.

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