I have been doing a little music detective work for the past few days because of a very curious finding with the published parts of this quartet. If you listen to the music from 12:14 to 12:17 you can hear 3 of the players playing "8th note, 8th rest, 8th rest, 8th note" while the fourth player (The viola) plays the rhythm "8th note, 8th rest, 8th note, 8th rest" It is almost as though the violist got mixed up and got ahead of the other 3 instruments. It sounds nice, but it is not what Dvorak wrote.In the original full score, all four instruments should play the same rhythm, "8th note, 8th rest, 8th rest, 8th note". All four instruments play together. In 1928, a recording of the Czech String quartet has all four instruments playing together, but as early as 1932, a recording by the Lener shows the "mistake."What is curious though, is that there are several famous string quartets who make the same "error" (Emerson, Jullaird, Budapest - 1940 recording, and several others, including the rather new Crimson String Quartet and Fry Street Quartet). But there are many quartets who play the part "correctly", for example, The American String Quartet, the Amadeus string quartet, the Novus string quartet, the Smetana string quartet, the Cleveland string quartet, Orion Quartet... all of these can be heard here on TH-cam. So, it must be that a set of parts by one publisher (Kalmus, I think) that has the mistaken transcription and there is another set of parts, from another publisher that has the correct transcription. (for anyone who has access to the score, the place in question is in the fourth movement, three and four measures prior to rehearsal number "8".... you can see the score here on TH-cam if you listen to the Emerson Quartet play the piece.... and you can note for yourself that they play from the altered part)What fascinates me is that the mistake goes back to 1932.The parts published by Kalmus contain the mistake in part preparation. About 30 percent of renditions heard on TH-cam play from the mis-transcribed viola part, where as about 70 percent play from the correct parts.One quartet, from Europe has informed me that they are aware of the altered part and played from it because they liked the sound better than the original. I wonder who else knows about it?
I have been doing a little music detective work for the past few days because of a very curious finding with the published parts of this quartet. If you listen to the music from 12:14 to 12:17 you can hear 3 of the players playing "8th note, 8th rest, 8th rest, 8th note" while the fourth player (The viola) plays the rhythm "8th note, 8th rest, 8th note, 8th rest" It is almost as though the violist got mixed up and got ahead of the other 3 instruments. It sounds nice, but it is not what Dvorak wrote.In the original full score, all four instruments should play the same rhythm, "8th note, 8th rest, 8th rest, 8th note". All four instruments play together. In 1928, a recording of the Czech String quartet has all four instruments playing together, but as early as 1932, a recording by the Lener shows the "mistake."What is curious though, is that there are several famous string quartets who make the same "error" (Emerson, Jullaird, Budapest - 1940 recording, and several others, including the rather new Crimson String Quartet and Fry Street Quartet). But there are many quartets who play the part "correctly", for example, The American String Quartet, the Amadeus string quartet, the Novus string quartet, the Smetana string quartet, the Cleveland string quartet, Orion Quartet... all of these can be heard here on TH-cam. So, it must be that a set of parts by one publisher (Kalmus, I think) that has the mistaken transcription and there is another set of parts, from another publisher that has the correct transcription. (for anyone who has access to the score, the place in question is in the fourth movement, three and four measures prior to rehearsal number "8".... you can see the score here on TH-cam if you listen to the Emerson Quartet play the piece.... and you can note for yourself that they play from the altered part)What fascinates me is that the mistake goes back to 1932.The parts published by Kalmus contain the mistake in part preparation. About 30 percent of renditions heard on TH-cam play from the mis-transcribed viola part, where as about 70 percent play from the correct parts.One quartet, from Europe has informed me that they are aware of the altered part and played from it because they liked the sound better than the original. I wonder who else knows about it?