Wow - you like a blend of very modern and very very 'classical' of the classical genre. That's great to see
I don't listen to Mozart (apart from choral) nor Brahms. A friend of mine only listens to Mozart/Beethoven/Bach and the most classical of the classical genre. She gets appalled when she visits and finds my classical music taste too extreme and modern. I admit I do listen to Lutoslawski and Penderecki and well as the Baltic minimalists like Arvo Part and Valentin Silvestrov who can be a bit taxing at times. Still it's great finding pieces from both extremes of the chronology of classical music which can bridge the poles. I wouldn't have considered Shostakovich as 'fast' in terms of his string quartets - intense and emotional maybe? It'd be great to see a reference list of recommendations for people. I know it would help me decide quickly what to demo for friends who are looking for similar music.
It just dawned on me that you would probably enjoy some of the neo-classical school, like Nadia Boulanger's work. Alexander Tansman's complete string quartet cycle (no. I is very aggressive and abrasive in this neoclassical vein) are very rewarding. He doesn't get much airplay apart from his guitar work with Segovia, but the Silesian String Quartet do an astounding cycle of his VIII string quartets. Grazyna Bacewicz is a similar student of this school and has a very rhythmic neoclassical stride in her string quartets too, but perhaps less easy to get on with than Tansman. Joanne Brudowicz is quite a legend! Her work is perhaps too elegant and refined, possessed of immense subtlety to make a dramatic emotional impact on first hearing.
It's a great question you've posed though. It has me thinking of various movements within genres of classical movements which are brisk and lively, however the overall architecture of most of the sonata form in violin/piano work and in string quartet form, tends to shift from slow to fast, like in scherzos.
Here's some 'easier' recommendations than the above neoclassicism if you have time to hunt down:
1.Franz Schubert - The last 4 string quartets esp. Death & The Maiden; Rosamunde
His work is mind-blowing here. It's incredible thinking about how young Schubert was when he wrote this phenomenal work of metaphysical proportions. Just the first opening bars of 'Death and the Maiden' blow away any expectation of what a 19th century composer could ever write. This is the only work I have of Schubert's - it is immensely satisfying.
2. Leos Janacek - String Quartets: Intimate Letters and the Kreutzer Quartets. I've been blessed with a copy of the Hagen String Quartet's interpretation. These guys completely demolish the competition. Before I had the Gabrieli String Quartets version as well as a number of Czech groups (Stamitz Quartet). The Hagen Quartet reveal a furious dimension to these Letters which is incredible. I've heard Janacek's quartets in concert a number of times and it never fails to move me.
3. Bedrich Smetana - String Quartets No.1 (My Life) and No.2 - dramatic and cutting edge Czech stuff
Well - cutting edge from the violn threatening to break cable and let all hell break loose. Play this loud! I'd recommend the Talich Quartet version - there are others but this one seems to be the more insightful.
His orchestral version of 'Ma Vlast' is well worth listening to. I was 11 when my music teacher introduced this to me in school. It is one of the few pieces which I really enjoy (from the orchestral genre). You can tell how much I loved my music teacher
I guess you would like many of the individual scherzo pieces in a wide range of music too; from string quartet to orchestral. Maybe someone with more love for orchestral music than me can point you in that direction.
I had to smile when you mentioned you liked Shostakovich's modern VIIIth quartet. Me too - along with the IVth. I can get the modern idiom of classical music better than the more traditional baroque styles. The Borodin Quartet version is the only one I have. It really gets to me because their numerical sequences of the quartets are all over the shot. I quite like putting I-III, IV-VI, VII-X, X-XII and XII-XV onto 5 mini-discs to listen to.
I find it very hard to listen to classical music through the internet - I need a CD with liner notes!
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