Woefully underfunded thread...
A) WARNING: Get the
SQs 1-8 on Dynamic, not Brilliant. If you really like these SQs, the bright, tight Dynamic recording makes these SQs really really more Italian...trust me

...and the Venice based quartet really has these things locked down. Very improvisatory.
B)SYMPHONIES: I heard
No.3 and
No.4 were the pinnacle, but I felt each was done in by a very stompy noisy finale (the slow mvmts however are heavenly). The Marco Polo w/
No.7 and the
Sym. de Antigonia? became my fav. No.7 has all the rustic beauty of the others, but the finale isn't quite as...I'll say bombastic. And the Antigonia Sym. is probably the best of the unnumbered syms. I also have the string sym,
No.6 (on Denon w/Rota and a great piece by Morricone).
I have a rare Nuevo Era cd with
Grottesco, Cello Cto, Ricercare, and Dialogo No.1? and this cd shows up Malipiero's 1920's clanky, quirky stuff to great effect. S. Palm plays the Cto. Very Milhaud-y, but a bit cranky-er. Great fun. Great cd. There is a companion disc in this series, a 2cd set of Casella by the same troupe.
C)CHAMBER: Besides the quirky SQs, I have a Dischi Recordi cd w/
Sonata a tre (piano trio),
Sonata a cinq (fl,hrp,str),wind qnt
Dialogo, and
SQ NO.8. The piano trio from @1920 IS a masterpiece IMHO. Again, all good fun here.
And Stradivarius has released all the
Dialoghi (though the 2 or 3 I have suffice) and a 2-cd set of chamber music called
Endecatode?. This would be the only other Malipiero disc I feel I would "neeeed" as it seems like a veritable treasure chest (and no duplications, I believe).
Malipiero's language hardened in the 50s-60s (like Chavez, Rawsthorne, Bloch, and other composers of the generation), but I really like his version of crankiness.
But the SQs really are some of the most chipper, cheerful, exhuberantly melodic and rhapsodic and quirky SQs I know. No one sounds like these SQs. It's like he keeps writing the same SQ over and over, in a good way, and they are so infectious. But please spend the $$$ and get the Dynamic recording.