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Favorite Classical String Quartets

When I started listening to Classical Music as a teenager over 50 years ago I quickly became seduced by the sounds of a string quartet.  My school library had a Seraphim 3LP set of Beethoven Middle Period Quartets with the Hungarian SQ (this was in stereo; they had recorded them in mono as well).  Op. 59/1, the first of the Razumovsky Quartets, was my seductress:  those long soulful cello lines, with the viola weaving in and out, the violins then sweetly taking over the main themes, and then all the instruments trading places-I was hooked.

 59/3 has a second movement dominated by the cellist who sounds like a jazz walking bass, and that furious fugal finale.  The Harp Quartet in that with its flying pizzicatos was another revelation.

  Beethoven’s late quartets are another thing entirely, and took a few generations for nineteenth century listeners to absorb.  Mozart and Haydn invented the genre and a lot of their best music is in their quartets.

  The aforementioned Classical Period composers are generally thought to have represented the apex of the genre, but I have always been fascinated by Dvorak, Borodin, and Shostakovich, all of whom seemed to luxuriate in the special sonic world of the string quartet.

 

 Other favorites?

  T

mahler123
billstevenson
1,244 posts
 

@mahler123 thanks for your suggestions.  I most likely have all or most of these and will give them a listen.  I have the complete works of pretty much all of the composers you mention, often more than one set of performers.  So for example I have the complete Beethoven on DGG, but also the complete Bernstein, the complete Ormandy, the complete...well you get the idea.   I have thousands of records and cds. I listen to all of it, comprehension...like I said pre-classical yes.  So I am doing ok with Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Handel.  But Beethoven...early ok, middle I struggle, late I am lost.  By the time we get to the Romantic period, Shubert, Shuman and Brahms and beyond, I am out of my depth. You mention Dvorak, I have his complete works.  Same with Ravel.  They are completely beyond me.  Hopeless.  Like I am from Mars.  I can understand Stravinsky, particularly the percussiveness of it.  It is almost primitive.  

mashif
488 posts
 

I particularly like the Panocha Quartet. They're Czech and do a lot of Dvorak and Janacek. But they also cover Haydn, Schubert, Mozart and others. Czech it out!

billsw
32 posts
 

Quartetto Italiano for the Beethoven middle and late quartets

Also great for the late Schubert quartets.

Borodin String Quartet for the Shostakovich quartets. You probably want the second set from the 1980s.

larryi
4,631 posts
 

The Beethoven Razumovski and late quartets are among my favorites.  I also like Haydn and Schubert quartets as well as other Schubert chamber works, particularly his String Quintet (D. 956) and his Piano Quintet.  There are many other composers whose chamber works are, to me, indispensable, like Shostakovich’s string quartets and his incredible piano trio no. 2.  I am also a big fan of the quartets of several British composers like Britten, Vaughn Williams, Tippett, and Alwyn.  A BIG surprise, given how unknown they remain, are the quartets of Villa Lobos.  I will save for later some recommendations for more modern compositions.

mahler123 OP
4,103 posts
 

@bruce19 

 

of course I listen to all genresharmo of chamber music, trios, duos, quintets, whatever.  However all chamber music in one thread I thought to be excessively ambitious

  I love the Haydn Quartets, as they are brimming with invention and humor.  However I like the way that composers that followed in his wake expanded sonority and particularly gave the cello and viola more to do harmonically 

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