Mozart,Haydn,Beethoven String Quartets......

I'm a little surprised that these recordings have not been recommended yet, but for the Beethoven String Quartets, I think the Guarneri Quartet's recordings are in a class by themselves.

There's also an interesting recording of the Mozart Quartets by the American String Quartet. The recordings were done using the "Axlerod" Stradivari instruments that are housed at the Smithsonian. The playing, and the sound, is fantastic.

Just my two cents. Regardless, I hope you enjoy listening to all of these great, great works.

I must agree: Guarneri Qt. is also great for Beethoven. I have some of their LPs, but not the CDs.

Scratch my vote on the cleveland quartet on Beethoven. For great sound recording and great performance the Naxos label, The Kodaly Quartet. The Tanayev Quartet plays excellent, but is "heavy" sounding vs the Kolady. The Kolady is more musical. Not sure, but i think Naxos has the complete Beethoven as a set. The Kolady does the complete Haydn , like 35 cd's!! Tweekerman

Wow...thanks to all...as usual...Audiogoners seem to really know their stuff...any thoughts on Schubert's "Death and the Maiden"? Also, as far as I know, Haydn pretty much perfected the genre...with Mozart and Beethoven following suite...are there are lesser known quartets that come to mind..I do have Borodin done by the Borodin quartet which is world class...any thoughts?

The Borodin by Borodin are indeed spectacular. For "Death and the Maiden" there are excellent recordings by the Emerson and Tokyo, and the best of all is the Busch Quartet from the 1930s (which can be found, or could once, on EMI/Angel CD: don't sweat the dated sound, it's surprisingly vivid). You might want to try the Brahms quartets (Alban Berg, Takacs are good), the Bartok (Tokyo, Emerson, best of all Vegh), the Janacek (Tokyo, Smetana). These are some of m favorites!