RFI: Beethoven String Quartets

The Emerson sq, the Vegh sq, and the Cleveland sq are the best in terms of good sound / interp. Actually, the Guarneri Quartet performances are my favorites, but the recording quality isn't exactly great.

I'd go for the Emerson, though. They are not the most dynamic as far as their playing is concerned, but they are certainly the most precise and the recordings have a great sound.

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-String-Quartets-David-Finckel/dp/B0000041KV/

I'm actually leaning toward the Takacs recordings, because I really like what they did with Bartok.

Yes, the Takacs are really good, too.

haven't heard Takacs doing Bartok -- I liked the Emerson recording, very muscular and aggressive, and seems to fit a lot of Bartok (esp 4th, which explodes on their version).

have Takacs and Emersons doing late Beethoven quartets, and I love Takacs, have only given cursory listens to Emerson -- in this case, a little scared those guys might ram through some of the extreme Beet-dynamics

Taronga Leela mentioned the Vegh quartet upthread. I've only heard them play Bartok, but I looooooooove it. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're my favorite Bartok interpreters or anything since I haven't really heard any others, but still - thumbs up from the dumbass.

insert obligatory Budapest rec for full cycle

yeah I'd say Budapest or Emerson

whoa! i was going to start a thread on this today. i only have the the takacs recordings, so i can't really compare. they're much more expensive than other complete sets, but i think their recordings are modern classics.

i was rocking out the presto of the E flat major quartet all day!

PS - take advantage of the barnes and noble buy 2 classical recordings, get a 3rd free if you are looking to invest in some box sets. you could get the complete takacs beethoven quartets on the cheap.. i just ordered kempff's complete schumann piano works and perlman/ashkenazy beethoven violin sonatas.

make sure you observe the one-per-customer rule. they froze my account :(

haven't heard Takacs doing Bartok

i would say that this rivals my Fall Peel Sessions box as the best purchase ever made.

the next big question for my collection is the complete beethoven piano sonatas. i have pollini doing the hammerklavier, etc, but I'm looking for a complete.

the classic recording is apparently schnabel, but i'm too worried about the sound which is either crappy or really crappy depending on the label.. kempff has two recordings, but the superior one (according to gramophone/AMG) is really expensive, as are later recordings by brendel and richard goode..

anyone have any of these?

I can highly recommend Bernard Roberts' complete Beethoven Sonatas - he doesn't mess around with the music, doesn't push it and pull it about, but deals with it musically.

As far as the string quartets are concerned, I've yet to hear a better recording of Op.130/133 than my Cleveland Quartet (on the Telarc label). I've not heard the rest but would happily buy the complete set on the sound quality and musicality of the Op.130/133 recording I have.

Quartetto Italiano!

"I'm willing to pay extra if I'm gonna hear something totally revelatory."

In that case you want The Busch Quartet recordings on EMI. 4 cd set with about half of the Beethoven cycle. Incredible readings and performances from the 1940s.

I'll strongly echo the support above for the Takacs cycle. (Dunno if it's available as a single box yet; could still just be the three seperate releases, in which case definitely follow the above buy-2-get-1-free advice). With Takacs you get the power of the Emerson but with more emotional involvement and more individuality of phrasing. The Emerson are like a sonic Ferrari. I don't like their Beethoven and I don't like their Bartok.

Cleveland SQ is also excellent. Fabulous recorded sound and interpretations that are middle of the road in a good way. The Alban Berg SQ are also very recommendable, but I have their live cycle. Their more famous studio cycle may be somewhat less intense (both are EMI).

I don't dig the Budapest in their readily available Sony recordings, but I've never heard the earlier ones which are supposed to be a grade above.

Stop reading now unless you want to hear about piano sonatas...

poortheater: why did you have to mention LvB piano sonatas? This is one of my biggest demons. I think I own at least a dozen complete cycles and have gotten rid of several more. Short answer is, there is no cycle by one pianist that does justice to all 32. It's probably safe to say that after 70 years of recorded attempts, it's never gonna happen. But that's not to say there aren't a bunch of complete cycles worth owning.

You heard right about Kempff. His 1960s stereo cycle is to be avoided. It's not that the playing is that much worse than his 1950s mono cycle; it's that the sound is unbearable. The high end just stabs you in the inner ear. You can order the mono cycle from European online stores still. The main draw is Kempff's magic touch at the keys and his way of making the music sound improvised. He could be more aggressive in certain sonatas though.

I could assemble an unimpeachable Brendel box, but the problem is it would draw substantially from all three of his cycles (Vox 1960s, Philips 1970s, Philips 1990s). Individually all three cycles have some duds. If I were to recommend one, it would be the digital 1990s. As he has gotten older, his playing of the first 16 sonatas has gotten more and more unbeatable while he has lost some of the technique necessary to totally bring off his ideas about the later sonatas.

The super-budget Dutch label Brilliant Classics has reissued Friedrich Gulda's second cycle, originally on 1960s Amadeo. This seems to have taken up the spot as everybody's prime recommendation for an overall cycle. You should be able to get it from an Amazon reseller for less than 40 bucks if they don't already have it at your local superstore. The rap on Gulda is that he's fast but not cold, technically jaw-dropping, and he brings a swing to the rhythms, but he's sometimes a bit too propulsive. I still haven't picked this up for some reason. Don't get it confused with Gulda's earlier cycle on Decca: avoid that.

Claude Frank on Music & Arts is totally recommendable. He's also fast, also a bit too much so at times, but never clinical and always conveys a real joy in the music. The sound for him is beatiful vintage analog (originally a c.1970 RCA box set). He was a Schnabel pupil FWIW. This is usually easy to find cheap.

Avoid Bernard Roberts (all due respect to the above poster). Avoid Barenboim. Don't bother with Pollini beyond his set of the last 5 and his Waldstein. Leave Schnabel for later; he was the pioneer but he's actually quite eccentric, you do have to listen past the sound quality, but in some sonatas he's pure magic. When you do go for him get the editions on Dante, Naxos or Pearl; other editions such as EMI are too heavily noise-filtered. Leave the mighty Arrau for later. He's incomparable, but his view of LvB is very much his own-- he makes every sonata sound like a 800-ton Rodin sculpture of Prometheus. You'll want him eventually, esp. in the Hammerklavier and Waldstein.

Richter is incredible when he wants to be, at his best untouchable, but there's no way to obtain a bunch of his better LvB interpetations in one package, and on some dates he's just annoying. The best one-shot for him right now is either the BBC Legends disc of the Hammerklavier or the Great Pianists Of The 20th Century volume featuring seven LvB sonatas. For a great, great single disc of a few of the famous sonatas get Ivan Moravec on Supraphon or VAI. He's old enough now that we know there won't be much more Beethoven from him, and that's a tragedy.

I think if there's one thing I could really, really advise in order to open this music up, it's to have two versions to compare. That's when you really hear the life in the music. It's almost like there's no way to ACTUALLY hear it except by triangulation or a kind of Rashomon "well HE says... but on the other hand HE says..." If you can manage to swing, say, Claude Frank or Gulda, and pair it with a more ruminative cycle like the digital Brendel or maybe Richard Goode, I guarantee a demon will enter your house who you'll be real glad to have.

At this point, I keep on my mp3 player my top three versions of each of the 32 sonatas (no complete cycles). If anyone gives a shit I'd post them, but I'd definitely better shut up for now.

I went for the Takacs set. Thanks for your advice, everybody.

and thanks, Jon. i'll let you know what i end up with.

are there any other classical box sets you'd recommend without reservation? as you said above, there's never a perfect cycle, but surely some are worth owning as introductions and references. i'm not at home right now, but i know i have:

Bartok - String Quartets; Takacs
Beethoven - Symphonies, Piano Concertos; Klemperer
Dvorak - Symphonies; Kubelik
Brahms - Piano Music; Katchen
Fauré - Piano Music; Kathryn Stott
Mozart - Piano Sonatas; Uchida
Schubert - Piano Sonatas; Kempff
Shostakovich - String Quartets; Emerson

and soon I'll have Kempff's Schumann box and Perlman's Beethoven violin sonata box. i have Solti's Ring cycle on vinyl and will eventually get a digital copy, but I might try out the Karajan or Bohm first.

the only set i've ever owned is a 10 album vinyl box by the Amadeus Quartet on Deutsche Grammophon from 1962. maybe it's time for an upgrade! always sounded great to me though. but what would i know, i have nothing to compare it with.

i love my vinyl box of Schubert's string quartets on DGG. That one is from 1975. The Melos Quartet. again, i have nothing to compare it with. but i think it's lovely.

Scott, that Amadeus 4tet cycle sounds better on vinyl than on CD, I'll bet. One reason I didn't keep the CD box was because of a certain harshness to the sound that made their playing sound clunkier than it probably was. Anyway, if you were to grab up the next decent-looking cheapish vinyl box set you see of LvB quartets, I'll bet you'd have a blast comparing interpretations, especially if you're super-accustomed to the Amadeus versions.

I never ever get tired of A/B'ing different performances of the same pieces... it's not always a "this rendition's better than this one" kind of thing-- it's just so fascinating to hear what two pianists or quartets or conductor/orchestras do with something that on paper is virtually identical.

xpost to poortheater-- I have to think a little bit about your question about excellent, don't-even-hesitate box sets that are out there.

"it's just so fascinating to hear what two pianists or quartets or conductor/orchestras do with something that on paper is virtually identical."

i notice the speed/tempo first. i guess that's natural. i get used to one recording, or have a favorite, and then i listen to someone else, and i'm thinking: dude, your Brahms is too fast for me! and then i think, hmm, maybe the one i like is just extra-lugubrious.

poortheatre: Schubert complete songs, Hyperion. And i personally love the three Purcell sets on Hyperion, all by Robert King.

xpost to poortheater-- I have to think a little bit about your question about excellent, don't-even-hesitate box sets that are out there.

i'm really interested in this response.

OK, lemme do a couple of these at a time, otherwise I'll never get to it.

1. Sibelius: Orchestral Music- Paavo Berglund cond. Helsinki and Bournemouth (EMI 8CD Budget Box)
Sibelius is my favorite symphonic composer. He cut to the heart of the matter early on and did not miss his target for almost 30 years. His themes may sound like other composers' at times, but how he develops his themes, or rather how he LETS HIS THEMES DEVELOP, is like no one else ever. There's a germane quote from him that he wanted "to find the pedal notes of Nature". He did. Berglund has no dud performances in this large survey of JS's symphonies, tone poems and incidental music. Only some of the performances vie with the very best, but the no-dud factory makes at a total RFI. I love the way the slightly piercing Helsinki woodwinds stand forth without getting drowned in the strings. The only really crucial works you would be missing are the Four Lemminkainen Legends and the incidental music for The Tempest-- as luck would have it the cheap Naxos recording of the Legends with the Iceland Symphony is world-class and fierce (but avoid the Naxos/Iceland symphony cycle, it's not so good). Alternately, if you want just the 7 symphonies the Decca/London 4CD box of Blomstedt with the San Francisco Symphony is an excellent choice. Start listening with the 4th or 5th and work your way both backward and forward from there.

2. Staying with Blomstedt for a minute, when he was young he did a Beethoven symphony cycle with the Staatskappelle Dresden that's now available dirt cheap in a Brilliant Classics box. Late 70's analog recordings. The Dresden is a very old, unique-sounding orchestra and one that has a sizeable, deserved cult among classical geeks (one easy-to-hear trait is that their timpanists use hard sticks without padded tips). The Blomstedt/Dresden LvB cycle is not eccentric in any way. They simply play the shit out of the music with all due feeling and gusto. This would be a great counterpart for the Klemperer box you already have (Klemperer very much the eccentric with his slow tempos and granite-jawed stubbornness).

3. Messiaen: Complete Piano Music- Peter Hill (Regis label, super budget)
Messiaen is a fascinatingly rich and imperfect 20th c. figure. You've got the devout Catholicism alongside the jazzy sex alongside the meticulously transcribed birdsongs all held together by a serious case of synaesthesia. His use of the orchestra is amazing, but for me the solo piano stuff is the most satisfying. There are two massive anthology works, Vingt Regards Sur L'Enfant Jesus and the Catalogue D'Oiseaux. The former is an overwhelming virtuoso study in rhythm and ecstasy, the latter a set of Audobon prints in sound with dizzyingly literal "depictions" not just of dozens of different bird species but the landscapes around them (still, craggy granite walls; movements of pond water, etc.) Main influences are the solo piano music of Debussy and Bartok, pre-Baroque sacred music, birdsong (natch)and early jazz (though he professed to dislike it).

I'll try'n post another few tomorrow. BTW the Complete Schubert Songs box on Hyperion is surely amazing-- I wish I owned it. It's pricey. Maybe there are deals to be found on it since it's been out a couple of years now. I assume the box has all the original liner notes-- if no, that's a deal breaker. I have 3 or 4 discs from the original series, and the liner notes (written by the pianist and driving force of the whole series) are incredible, each one far more than you can read in a single sitting. If Hyperion ever issued the complete notes as a seperate book I'd buy it for sure.

I assume the box has all the original liner notes

actually, i think one of the gripes about the schubert box is that the liner notes for individual releases were NOT included in the box.. keep 'em coming!

just got the Takacs Late Quartets today, holy whoa this is the one.

yessssssssssss

huh, i meant to listen to these today. they're lying on my desk still. quartetto italiano, although i had to check that before i could say

i spent weeks listening to the late quartets a couple years ago but my understanding of chamber music kind of stalled there

so here is a beethoven string quartets RFI: where next?

At this point, I keep on my mp3 player my top three versions of each of the 32 sonatas (no complete cycles). If anyone gives a shit I'd post them, but I'd definitely better shut up for now.

― Jon Lewis, Monday, May 21, 2007 6:09 PM (5 years ago)

Would love to see this!

Oh man. You might regret that request. Do we have a thread for lvb piano sonatas ? I'm on zing touch right now...

Not sure - this seemed a great thread ripe for bumping, thoigh.

Actually I'd be interested (also?instead?) to know your favourite Brendels, as the only full cycle I've spent any time with is his first in the brilliant Brilliant Vox box.

i like the alban berg qt's set

Tomorrow or possibly tonight ill list my composite brendel cycle of the 32, taking from his 3 complete cycles plus the odds and ends releases.

Great, thanks!

never heard the razumovsky quartets for some reason, i didn't realize they were regarded as basically as next-level as the late ones are

the takacs middle quartets set p. much as great as the late but the shit RIPS

Saw the Danish String Quartet play 131 and 135 last saturday. 131 was absolutely breathtaking, seeing four human beings so in sync in communicating something so mysterious was awe-inspiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUob2dcQTWA

that good shit

Sibelius is my favorite symphonic composer. He cut to the heart of the matter early on and did not miss his target for almost 30 years. His themes may sound like other composers' at times, but how he develops his themes, or rather how he LETS HIS THEMES DEVELOP, is like no one else ever.

from the great jon lewis post upthread, this sentence really tickled me

The first Beethoven quartet that clicked with me, and my favourite to this day (along with the Große Fuge).

If you're curious to compare performances, check out this classic live take by the Alban Berg Quartet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNjmOnh75_g

I miss poortheatre and call the cops
ILX has never been able to afford to lose classical peeps

I feel bad for posting so little about classical music lately but I'll try to make up for it very soon. I just need to finish catching up with recent releases.

I have steadily appreciated ILX writing on classical music, as I have finally found a way in, through reading here about Sibelius' 5th symphony. The third movement is so beautiful, like, I get queasy listening to it it's so beautiful, like it's the warmth of the universe, not cosmic but rather the unity within the cosmic, like you could walk into the river Styx to this, welcome home buddy, all of nature together

I know this isn't a Sibelius thread but I wanted to thank you all for walking into that river with me

The 5th truly is a thing of awe. Just to expand on your aquatic metaphors, have you heard The Oceanides, Euler?

no but I can look it up!

Apologies for further hijacking the Beethoven SQ thread, but I suggest the recording on this marvellous selection of Sibelius's tone poems – it really brings out the music's affinity for the natural world:

https://d27t0qkxhe4r68.cloudfront.net/t_300/7318590012253.jpg?1401982557

I saw the Minguet Quartet play op.131 last month, thrilling and beautiful performance. Recommend seeing them if you get the chance.

Lucky you! I'd love to hear them play live.

It was at the Purcell room. I'm sure they'll be back!

came here looking for LvB quartet advice, Jon does not disappoint as usual. I have the Guarneri middle quartet box and was wondering if the low ratings on Discogs were really applicable, guess not?