Hi everyone,

I wonder if anyone can point me in the direction of a really good sounding Classical string quartet CD (No SACD or DVD-A yet). I love the music, but unfortunately I am not versed with the names of the artists.

Thanks for the help guys.

cheers,

Hey Din,

What period of music are you interested in? 20th century? Classical? Baroque? In general, any recordings by the Emerson String Quartet are stellar, both in terms of technique and interpretation as well as the fidelity of the recordings (under the Deustche Grammophone label). Check out the String Quartets by Ravel and Debussy, or if you're a little more daring, Bartok--particularly his String Quartet No. 4.

Let me know if you want more suggestions. I love this stuff!

-JT

Telarc has a fantastic set of the Complete Beethoven String Quartets played by the Cleveland Quartet. The sound quality is outstanding and I like the performances, too. I've only got one disc (Op. 127 and 131) so far, but I love it, and plan to get a few more from the same series. I've also got a disc of Debussy and Ravel string quartets (also by the Cleveland Quartet) that's quite good, too.

Din, I agree with JT and Adam that you should consider the Ravel and Debussy quartets for your first buy. An outstanding bargain, which also includes the exquisite Ravel Intoduction and Allegro, is found on Naxos 8.550249. I recall that you're in Calgary, so here's the Amazon Canada listing. If you'd be interested, I'd be glad to suggest a few similar bargains to get you up to the free shipping amount.

Go to Amazon and do a search for "String Quartet Tribute To" and see what comes up, I have a few of their albums (read 4) and I quite like them, the nice thing is for songs you love, they can be listened to by everyone because they don't always like that genre, but they like the classical version.

- D