I've been listening to a lot of mid century American music lately and here's a very good example of some terrific quartet writing. The first quartet of Benjamin Lees and the Quartet No 2 of William Denny are the featured works on this Epic release by the Juilliard Quartet. This was part of the Twentieth Century Composers series that was spearheaded by Goddard Lieberson during his tenure as President of Columbia Masterworks.
There is some lovely, lyrical writing in both of these forgotten compositions. For those that eschew strings that produce acidic, hard edged, rather schizophrenic sounds, this lp is is your contemporary passport to bliss. Lees was vocal in his opposition to atonal and serial schools of thought and the result was a composition that bears a relationship to the works produced by late romantic composers. I'd say Denny falls into the same "school" as Lees too. Perhaps, these works hearkened back to another era in a way that is too obvious therefore pretty much negating their presence on the musical scene today. I don't know. But, what I can say that there is beauty in both works and much listening satisfaction can be had here.
The performances by the Juilliard Quartet are perfect.
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