Yes, I'm looking forward to them getting on the completion part. I anxiously await Carpe Diem's next recording of Taneyev's quartets.

My favourite string quartets are not Beethoven's oddly enough, with the single exception of the Grosse Fuge. But apart from that my favourites are the six Bartok quartets and the Schoenberg second (which includes a soprano in the last two movements!).

Apart from the two Janacek quartets that have already been mentioned I like Berg's and Walton's string quartets. Walton's was the only work of his in which he experimented with atonalism. It's a neo-romantic work with a dissonant, atonal edge. I especially like the final movement.

Which Walton's? He wrote two, a first one on 3 movements, and a second A minor in 4. I've it on CD

The string quartet (and related groupings) is a wonderful genre; there is a certain intensity to small groups of instruments that doesn't exist in orchestras.

Great pieces listed so far. I'd definitely add the works of Brahms; I am particularly partial to the viola quintets.

I meant the more popular one, the one in A minor of 1947.

Gotta love Ravel's Quartet, some seriously fine music; coda on the first movement is absolutely awesome.

Haydn and Mozart's quartets are ones i prefer also, Haydn's Op.76, No.2 is a bit overplayed some say but i still love it.

Everyone should get Beethoven Op.131 by the Vegh quartet. Beethoven's self-proclaimed masterpiece by a quartet that, in my opinion, cannot be beaten for quality.

The Haydn Op.76/2 is my favourite classical quartet and deservedly overplayed!

Perhaps in all of music.

I'm not much of a string quartet person (more piano trio), but I'll put in my $0.02.
I love the Grieg String Quartet op. 27 G minor!
Shostakovich no. 8 is still amazing, even though it's fairly overplayed...
I love Smetana for that violist's dream solo in the beginning and Borodin is so beautiful.
Schubert's Rosamunde is such a nice piece, even though it is violin dominated.
Dvorak American F major is waaaaay overplayed to the extent of a cliche.
One of Dvorak's quartet 1st movement is really pretty! (I think it's in Eb major??) The cello part is arppeggio-like in the beginning.
So there you go.

LvB Op. 132 III. Heiliger Dankezang (Holy Donkey Kong)

I like Beethoven's and Haydn's.

No one's mentioned Spohr's string quartets yet.

I found samples of them on amazon.com and very much liked the samples of his string quartets (and quintets). So I requested that the radio play them and liked the full length piece. So I want to get some of his CDs but I'm a little disappointed they don't come in a box set.

Well, I don't see much contemporary string quartets mentioned yet...

So, I would recommend Philip Glass's string quartets as well as Peter Sculthorpe's.

yeah Spohr's string quartet is a bit below the light, as well as boccherini, pleyel, vanhall and other classical era.

Old thread ~ only discovered new

It's been frustrating for years, only tasting Taneyev's string quartets incompletely. His piano quartet looms large; even the piano quintet which first drew me to his work (some Dutch group or other).

This Christmas I received the complete Taneyev string cycle by the Taneyev Quartet. The most striking thing, being an avid fan of the Taneyev Quartet and their pupils, the St Petersburg Quartet, is that the recordings possess an undeniable clarity for such late era 70's-80's recordings. Although I tend to struggle with Brahms and romantic era music, the contrapuntal balance throughout his work is so delicious, as are the elegiac moments and refinement of his individual expression. The cycle really does make the rest of European music seem somewhat provincial in its narrow outlook.

The only major grumble about the series, is that looking at the CD programmes, the Northern Flowers label could have actually got all 9 string quartets onto 4 discs, instead of hammering the customer for 5 discs. It isn't so much a re-make, so much as a re-release: Northern Flowers label has done exactly the same with the Myaskovsky string quartets, and revived them from the dead, after Russian Discs went kaputt. However putting one Taneyev quartet, running in at less than 43 minutes, onto a single disc, in order to space them out of numerical sequence, is one of the dodgiest acts of marketing, bumping up the numbers to 5 discs when 4 would have sufficed. Marry that with the fact, that the string cycle has never been available as a complete box set, it's not a wonder people prefer to buy the complete Beethoven or Shostakovich string cycles for 1/3rd of the price. To their personal loss though. What a fantastic cycle! Highly recommendable...