Schoenberg String Quartet Recording Recommendations

[Stephen Fine]

Hit me.

[SteveLaBonne]

The classic Juilliard recordings, infuriatingly, have still AFAIK never been issued on CD. So by default, Arditti on Disques Montaigne, beautifully played (of course) though not quite as dramatic and compelling as the Juilliard.

[xdmitrix420]

if you want to go old school there is the Kolisch Quartet

recordings of these.  Eugene Lehner, a famous violist from the

Boston Symphony, played in them.  The quality of the recording

technology is very low - you hear a lot of pops and hisses -

but the playing is very good, and I think they might have been

getting musical direction from schoenberg himself.  Im not

sure if these recordings are still available, but I borrowed mine

from a friend.  I returned the CD to my friend about 5 days

after Eugene Lehner died, and I remember him telling me how Lehner

never wanted these recordings released in the first place.

Another fun fact: Kolisch, the first violinist played his violin

holding the bow in the left hand and the violin in the right hand.

 He originally held the instrument the way most everyone does,

but after some sort of accident he damaged his left hand.

[BillW]

There's a moderately priced recording by the New Vienna String Quartet on Philips that I've listened to with much pleasure.

[SteveLaBonne]

Eh, the New Vienna recordings are OK. But really the Arditti is worth the extra outlay.

[archaic]

An interesting point about the Kolisch quartet performances: according to several sources they, like all of that quartet's work at that time, were played from memory. Apparenty they rehearsed everything with complete scores on each player's stand.

[Stephen Fine]

OK. 1&3 no longer interest me. Now what about #2?