For me...Shostakovich #8 and any of the Haydn String Quartets.
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
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@paulburnett et al +1 Own three CD box sets + separate singles by the Quartetto Italiano. More than 30 discs total. Own many others by many of "the usual suspects" but find something distinctive about the sound of the QI, even as recorded by multiple labels and during different decades, in mono and in stereo, that I am unable to define but I like it very much. I can even recognize their sound when driving and listening to XM radio. My favorites. |
The structure of the Bartok string quartets seemed 19th century once I got past his musical language that came from Hungarian folk music. At first, it sounded dissonent and a bit off, until I got used to it. In his fourth, fifth, and sixth, I think he moves a bit away from this Hungarian folk music, and I like them more. Structurally, it seems to me that Beethoven's late string quartets are more complex than Bartok's. Ravel's string quartet is one of my favorites. Adding an instrument, there is always Schubert's Trout Quintet. I have lately gotten into Mozart's quartets. It has taken me a long time to appreciate Mozart. He seemed dull compared to the Romantics until I got older and duller, myself. I will have to look into Shostakovich's string quartets. |
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