QUARTET NAME NEEDED
Replies
The Chanot Quartet or Quatour Chanot
The Frish (French/English) Quartet.
Frish'n Quips?
Huron Quartet
Four on Four
The Dolce Four
Four You
All Four One
I love Stephen's idea, "Chunnel"! Clever name!
For Four, or just FF, or double forte. Or Four the love of music.
Or to steal from a previous thread, "Time for Four." It might get you confused with the other group, but hey it's work.
Hey Carolyn ;)
I don't really have any quartet name suggestions just wanted to say hi.
:P
maybe the diamond quartet?
Quatuor Quartet
or if you want something slightly political:
Quartet Gate
It's music so nationality shouldn't matter (but I do like "Chunnel").
Years ago I had a piano trio: Paul, Andrew, and Robert and we called ourselves the "PAR Trio." Can you do anything like that with your names?
Andy
If you want a "classical" sounding name for your quartet you could do worse than to ransack the 18th century for slightly obscure composers, luthiers and performers - sorry, all the well-known names will have been used by now!
Regarding composers, try the IMSLP website and search under "Period", especially Baroque and Classical. There are several hundred names listed. Always check on your final choice with a search (eg Google) to see if a quartet with that name already exists.
Incidentally, it's never a good policy to use a name that is being or has been used. Quite apart from possible legal problems people can get a bit uppity about it and there is likely to be confusion.
[edit added later] Try to be imaginative and unusual. For example, the professional "Methera" string quartet specializes in English traditional folk music. Their name derives from the counting of sheep in Cumberland, "yan, tyan, tethera, methera ..." (probably Welsh or other Celtic influence way back).
There is a botanical term called "disharmonic flora" which I always thought might be good for a classical music group. As long as you have a healthy sense of irony. It refers to groups of plants that evolve together without some of the major plant families. This often happens on islands and remote locations. It results in other plant families becoming more diverse and lots of endemic species that are completely unique to one place.
Or, you could try Diospyros, the scientific name of for ebony species what all your fingerboards are made of.
You could look up some plants that are native to your hometowns and see what their scientific names are, sometimes there can be fun names in those.
You could also try shearwater quartet or gannet quartet. Those are 2 species of seabirds that hang out in the English Channel. Do some research on it though. I just did a quick web search.
And I should just explain how ridiculously cool shearwaters are. They mate for life, can live to be 50 years old and they have a GPS system in their brain. They can find the place they were born after spending years at sea. They come back pretty much to exact spot where they were hatched. You guys are probably thinking, "man, seabird geeks are worse than orch dorks".
hi Rachel, nice to find someone who, apparently, has a love of both the violin and nature, just like myself!
the scientific name for Shearwaters is Puffinus---the Puffinus Quartet!!
Hi Jean, Yay nature! I am hoping that some crazy composer will someday write a symphony (or maybe quartet music?) that mimics the sounds of various seabird colonies. Shearwaters have some pretty hilarious calls. I tried to play their call on the violin once, but it didn't work out so well--but maybe someday.
"4x4 Off-Road" would have a more macho feel.
The first person to swim across the English Channel was Matthew Webb. So how about the Webb quartet?
"Canadian Teen". Something that uses some interesting musical or cultural word in both French and English.
How about "Waterloo" quartet, that should create some internal excitement.
The first person to swim across the English Channel was Matthew Webb. So how about the Webb quartet?
How about the Webb Foot quartet?
So where do you practice? Pick that town as the basis, then expand. Example: the South Downs-Gallic Quartet.
Hey. Have fun. Once you pick a name, it's all publicity. :-)
The Four Horsehairs of the Apocalypse
Alan -
OMG that's funny.
---Ann Marie
Check out John Pierce's entry on Dmitri Musafia's thread about how advertisers like to belittle classical music.....he says "Sometimes Wolfgang Wins". You could use that for a quartet name. Let us know what you decide on.
Great suggestions. However, you are a string quartet; don't try to be too cute. For example, don't call your quartet "Four-On-The-Floor," or "LOL," or "Five-Minus-One," or anything like that. Keep it conservative and with a name that not only makes sense but sounds nice. But just sounding nice isn't necessarily good either. The "Ocelot String Quartet" may be a nice sounding name, but it's a wild cat. And if you want to name it after a person, be careful. The "Larry Talbot String Quartet" has a nice ring to it, but Larry Talbot was the werewolf.
Cheers,
Sandy
Sooooo....have you a name, yet??
Frogs and Two Veg?
The four perfect fifths
Strings Across the Channel
Channel Four
The Candy Cane String Quartet.
The Winter Dreams String Quartet.
Allegro Quartet
Firmata Quartet
Pernambuco devils (my favorite!)
Sereno Quartet
Frenglish love
Frenglish Friendship
Frenglish Harmony
Frenship Quartet ("Fren" for french...)
Good luck!
Anne-Marie
Jack French Quartet? This sounds seriously good and already a brand name elsewhere.
Or for a less elegant but family friendlier version, how about, the Jacques & Jill Quartet?
(Not to be confused with the brilliant Jack Quartet)
THE FOURTACUS!! I'M FOURTA!
hehehehe...
The first quartet not to name themselves after their first violinist was, I think, the 1940s London International Quartet (The name has since been recycled by Daniel Hope & Co., and, contrary to what Trevor says, they will get away with it - I think I can say this with authority). Their violist suggested to Norbert Brainin that his quartet would also do better not to be called the Brainin Quartet, and after a while his quartet came up with the name Amadeus. Professional engagements for string quartets were not plentiful, and the London International members went on to do other things, leaving the better Amadeus Quartet uncontested. When in my childhood I heard this story I thought up the name "The Van Quartet", after Beethoven's middle name (Nobody in fact used this name until four Armenians did so this century, and I suspect they were thinking more of Lake Van when they chose it). After that, everybody jumped on the bandwagon, leaving us in our present position.
Enough history. How about "The Rosbif Quartet"? A bit naff? But you could explore this route further. I think "The Chateaubriand Quartet" would actually be a great name for a string quartet, and it wouldn't leave the Anglo-French connection completely behind, as Chateaubriand's Mature Creation Theory was developed in the 19th century by Penn and the Gosses, and in this century is being further developed by the chemist P.G.Nelson.
Actually, I'm finding it quite difficult to think of any other dish name for a quartet that wouldn't sound ridiculous: The Coq-au-vin Quartet? The Irish Stew Quartet? The Wiener Schnitzel Quartet? etc., etc.
Can't make suggestions for others, but this brings to mind a pleasant memory from high school, where I formed a quartet for a while. The cellist lived on a lovely cul-de-sac in Brooklyn called Wellington Court. So we called ourselves the Wellington Quartet - or sometimes the Wellington Court-et!
"The first quartet not to name themselves after their first violinist was, I think, the 1940s London International Quartet..."
That's if you don't count the Primrose Quartet.
And I forgot that before the Budapest (1930s?), there was the Flonzaley, named for a country house.
Primrose's earlier group was the London String Quartet, founded 1908.
And there were Hungarian Quartets going back to 1910.
Touche! But then there were the quartets that named themselves after an American composer before he was even born (though barber shop quartets weren't actually recorded till the 1940s).
And, Raphael, you didn't get the boot?
A further serious suggestion: How about The Olivier Quartet? The English Olivier wasn't a musician, but he did commission the greatest film music ever, and that film was set in both France and England. I'm sure I don't need to say anything about the French Olivier, except that you'll need at least to add a pianist (for Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes) if you want to perform anything by him.
Chanel 4 gives you both an English TV channel and. French perfume.
What could be better?
(Quatuor) Tunnelos (Quartet)
A belated response to an issue which should have been resolved long ago, but immediately and vigorously I get an answer which I don't see specifically among the responses, though it follows Trevor Jennings' strategy of ransacking the 18th Century. My answer, add variations:
Le Quatour de Chevalier-- someone with better French skills than mine could tweak it so that it translates as / implies both a string quartet referring to Le Chevalier Joseph Boulogne Saint-Georges, "the Black Mozart", and also some mythical promotional image of you all as [horse] riders, knights, comrades-in-arms. This is all fair and channel-spanning, given the Chevalier's military training and activities, and career in fencing and regular tournament appearances in England, besides late life musical "touring" with his horn-playing companion in England.
He wrote LOVELY fresh distinctive plangent string quartets, some extant, and how cool would that be to bear his name and play his music?? Has this name been taken before? Dunno... don't think so... cat's out of the bag... ;-)
And Maurice Chevalier was a French actor, singer and entertainer, who spent quite a lot of time in England. Most people in the UK, maybe in France as well, will associate your name with him, rather than with the Chevalier de Saint-George.
About the London String Quartet, Doh! (Primrose didn't join it until 1930, but it had initially been led by the great Albert Sammons) As for the Primrose Quartet of the 30s, it would perhaps have better been named the Shumsky Quartet. Shumsky was a better musician (Am I being too hard on Primrose for not dropping the octave at Figure 19 in the Walton? I'm no great musician, but even I can sense why Walton put the octave drop there) and no mean viola player himself.
I did think of the Waterloo Quartet,or the Quatuor Austerlitz,: in both places the English and French had memorable encounters. Bit then I just enjoy stirring up trouble!
Stir a bit more: The Marlbrouk Quartet?
What a fun discussion thread! My hunch, however, is that the members of your quartet are English and French speaking and not from those countries. (I'm saying this b/c it sounds like you're Canadian and Canada-based.) If so, that kind of kills the "Chunnel" and France/England references, huh?
No suggestions - I'm just enjoying the ones brought forth. And do let us know what you finally decide. It's all rather exciting!
Then you could call it the Etiemble Quartet (He introduced the term "Franglais") or even the Franglais Quartet itself.
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January 20, 2013 at 02:27 AM · The Chunnel Quartet.