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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
 

@kirkwallace Well you certainly enhanced my life!  After listening to the guitars, I listened to some Argerich, then some Emerson, then some Gould.  Frankly there is no part of any of these Goldberg Variations that I don’t like.  Maybe if you pointed a gun at me head it would be Argerich, but I do like the string versions too...both the quartet and the guitars.  I can’t choose, it is all great.  Now I have to listen to how the Swingle Singers did it.  If memory serves, John Lewis (of MJQ) also did something with at least some part of this material.   LOL!  (I am a jazz person first)

BTW @mahler123 I wanted to compliment you on the way you phrased this thread.  Your use of the word favorite, not best or some such.  Wonderful.  Thanks.

kirkwallace's avatar
kirkwallace
405 posts
 

@billstevenson that makes me so happy to hear!  So very glad. 

mahler123 OP
4,108 posts
 

@simonmoon 

 

how do you like the Bartok and Schoenberg Quartets?

billstevenson
1,244 posts
 

@bruce19 A good system should simply present the music in a neutral manner.  The genre of the music will have little to no bearing on the matter.  A far, far greater impact than the playback equipment selected will be the listening room.  For the vast majority of us, our listening room will generally be quite small relative to the size of the venue where the music is recorded.  That general statement will hold for the majority of circumstances.  Equipment selections will have essentially only minimal impact compared to issues outside of our control.  In addition to room configuration and acoustics, issues such as microphone selection and placement, number of channels, channel balance,  spacing, isolation, mixing are all done during recording and will impact the sound far more than we can by amplifier choice or whatever.  We think we are affecting how things will sound, but consider something as fundamental as speaker selection.  The speaker in the control room will affect the decisions made in making the master that are fundamental and irreversible.  We have 0 control over that crucial aspect of the sound that we ultimately must live with.  So have fun selecting your system, but don't worry about it too much, just pick what you like the sound of.

bruce19
383 posts
 

@billstevenson I generally agree with you but I have found you can get away with a more "lightweight" system when you are listening to small group acoustic instruments and voice played a realistic levels or lower. In that situation detail retrieval, and tonality dominate along with interaction with the room. Some of us find merit in that and shedding some of the power and dynamics needed for louder more aggressive forms of the art.

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