Voices of Modernism and the String Quartet — Fry Street Quartet

This is a review I wrote for SA-CD.net and published there on the 4th of November 2007. SA-CD.net has since become hraudio.net and the old review pages went with it, so this is reproduced from the Internet Archive’s capture. It ran as a site review, and carries a joint copyright line with SA-CD.net.

The review is reproduced as it stood. Only the site’s own furniture around it — the star graphics, the “was this review helpful?” footer — has been dropped, and the ratings it carried are restated as numbers below.

IsoMike · FSQCD3 (2 discs) · hybrid disc · stereo and multichannel · DSD recording

Performance 5/5 · Sonics stereo 4.5/5, multichannel 5/5

I have never heard of the Fry Street Quartet prior to sampling this recording, but based on this I would love to hear more of their performances.

This is a two disc collection of five string quartets from Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ned Rorem and J. Mark Scearce. The selection is not arbitrary, but chosen to reflect a theme of “Modernism” from four composers, each of whom was at a point of “personal confrontation.”

For example, of the two quartets from Beethoven, Op. 18 No. 5 was taken from the beginning of his “heroic” period when he was actively breaking away from the stylistic conventions of his predecessors and contemporaries, and actively searching for a unique voice. Op. 132 is one of the last few quartets written before he died, and the transcendental nature of the music is a fitting symbolism for his own departure into a different plane of existence.

Three Pieces for String Quartet represents Stravinsky’s first venture into writing for a string quartet, and is one of his most eccentric works. Rorem’s String Quartet No. 4 is a set of musical portraits, each based on a painting by Picasso. Finally, Scearse’s “Y2K” string quartet, also his first venture into the medium, is an appropriate reflection of the turn of the millennium as well as marking a milestone in the composer’s personal life.

The Fry Street Quartet’s performance of these works can only be be described as “gripping.” I was so absorbed by the performances I couldn’t stop the disc once it has started playing. Particularly on the two Beethoven quartets, the rather energetic interpretation provided fresh insights and revelations on these familiar pieces. But it’s not just all ferocious energy, there’s also a lot of gentleness and lyricism in the performances as well.

As with other IsoMike recordings, this is a 4-channel recording utilizing an interesting microphone placement consisting of four mics suspended from four arms (capturing Front Left, Front Right, Rear Left, and Rear Right). Special heart shaped acoustic baffles are placed between the mics to ensure that the content captured by each microphone is as discrete and unique as possible. The theory behind this is that in a typical microphone setup, each microphone is capturing not only unique content but shared content also captured by other microphones. Unfortunately, the physical placement of these microphones means shared content is captured at slightly different phases by each mic, so when the recording is played back you get the possibility of phase cancellation from the channels. Hopefully an IsoMike recording should result in less phase cancellation, therefore a clearer and less muddy sound. You can see a photo of the IsoMike system, as well as a description of the IsoMike technique, in the cover booklet.

The theory seems plausible, but does it result in a better recording? Well, you can judge for yourself by listening to this disc. I certainly found the recording to be one of the best representations of a string quartet I have ever heard, with a sense of spaciousness and air that is possibly due to the higher channel separation. I suspect the mics were rather close to the quartet, as I can what seemed to be breathing sounds (or perhaps these are artefacts from the bowing). Judging from the rather high average sound level, I am also wondering if some compression or peak limiting has been applied. Then again, a string quartet does not have a lot of dynamic contrast, which may perhaps allow for a higher recording level to be used. The venue is the Austad Auditorium at the Val. A Browning Center for the Performing Arts at Weber University, Ogden, Utah. The recording sound seems richer than another IsoMike recording I recently reviewed (Joe McQueen & friends: Ten at 86) which was rather dry, again leading me to suspect the microphones are fairly closely placed to the performers.