Your Top 9 String Quartets

[North Star]

Shostakovich 8
Borodin 2
Ravel
Debussy
Bloch 1
Szymanowski 2 (coin toss with no. 1)
Martinu 5
Villa-Lobos 12
Dvorak 12
Miaskovsky 13
Janacek 1
Grieg
Maconchy 5
Bartok 6
Creston
Hanson
Tchaikovsky 1
Magnard
I like the Holmboe SQs a lot but can't remember which one is my favorite.

Who's counting?

You get to choose the Shostakovich and one of the Borodins. Or compile a proper list

[kyjo]

You get to choose the Shostakovich and one of the Borodins. Or compile a proper list

I do what I want!

[Herman]

Mozart 387
Mozart 590
Haydn 64 / 5
Haydn 76 / 2
Beethoven 131
Brahms 67
Dvorak 106
Faure
Debussy
Shostakovich 15

couple years later:

Mozart 464
Mozart 590
Beethoven 135
Haydn 76 / 2
Schumann 41 /2
Brahms 67
Reger 121 (very much so!)
Faure
Debussy
Carter 5

[Karl Henning]

Oops-a-typo-daisy . . . .

[North Star]

One per composer

Haydn Op. 76/II 'Quinten'
Beethoven Op. 131
Schubert No. 15, D. 887
Ravel
Bartók No. 5
Janácek No. 2
Berg Lyric Suite
Shostakovich 8th (alternatively, throw a dart on a list, preferably not to one on the computer screen, though)
Dutilleux Ainsi la nuit...

Mozart, Brahms, Debussy, Szymanowski, Schönberg, and Dvorak aren't nice to leave out.

[amw]

I thought you might be showing deference the unpublished D Major quartet from 1897.

I actually like that one more than Nos. 1 and 2.   0:)

[kyjo]

I shouldn't have left out Schoenberg 2 and Schubert 14 (or 15) from my list!

[TheGSMoeller]

random order...

Shostakovich: No. 15
Schubert: No. 14 "Death and the Maiden"
Glass: No. 4 "Buczak"
Haydn: No. 23, Op. 20
Haydn: No. 30, Op. 33, "The Joke"
Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Christ
Prokofiev: No. 1
Prokofiev: No 2
Britten: No. 3

Wow, two years ago already?    This list definitely has changed a bit considering that string quartets is a genre I've extensively been exploring since I wrote this.

[Dax]

Ravel
Szymanowski 2
Lutoslawski
Cage
Bartok 4
Van Dieren 1
Janacek 1
Leifs 2
Crawford

[Herman]

Mozart 387
Mozart 590
Haydn 64 / 5
Haydn 76 / 2
Beethoven 131
Brahms 67
Dvorak 106
Faure
Debussy
Shostakovich 15

I changed my mind.
Mozart 387
Mozart 464
Haydn 76 / 2
Beethoven Harp
Schumann 41 / 1
Brahms 67
Reger 109
Faure
DSCH 13 (the viola quartet)
Britten 3 Serenissima

[The new erato]

Reger 109
Faure
DSCH 13 (the viola quartet)
Britten 3 Serenissima

The DSCH 13 is my Dmitri favorite, and you picked another 3 superb and relatively overlooked quartets there!

[Jo498]

without restrictions rather one-sided 

Beethoven: opp.131,132,127,130/133,135,95,59/1
Schubert: D 887
Haydn: op.76/5
Berg: Lyric Suite

One per composer, chronologically:

Haydn op.76/5
Mozart KV 499
LvB op.131
Schubert D 887
Schumann op.41/1
Dvorak G major op.106
Berg: Lyric Suite
Bartok #5
Shostakovich #5

[DaveF]

So many good listening suggestions above...

And in what I'm guessing is chronological order (haven't checked the 20th century in detail) - mostly the usual suspects from above:

Byrd 4-part fantasia (2'45" - is this the shortest piece in the thread?)
Haydn Op.77/2
Beethoven Op.130/133
Schubert Rosamunde
Janáček 1
Berg Lyric Suite
Bartók 4 (no, I mean 3... (falls into Gorge of Eternal Peril))
Britten 2
Shostakovich 13 (lots of mentions - don't we all love the viola player's revenge)
Adès Arcadiana

[Spineur]

Haydn Op 76 no 3
Mozart no 15 (dedicated to Haydn)
Beethoven Quatuor no 9 Op 59 no 3 (Razumovsky)
Johannes Brahms no 2 A minor
Felix Mendelssohn Quatuor no 2 Op 13
Schubert no 14 Death and the Maiden
Debussy Quatuor in F major
D Shostakovitch no 8
Samuel Barber Quatuor op 11

I limited my choice to a single quartet per composer.
I find Debussy quatuor much more original than Ravel.
The slow movement of Samuel Barber quatuor is the original form of the adagio for strings.

[jlaurson]

First go, narrowing it down as I go -- going by the equally arbitrary one-per-composer rule, to keep Haydn from crowding out the others.

Haydn
Jongen
Beethoven
Bartok
DSCH
Ravel
Schulhoff
Janacek
Mozart?


Narrower:

Beethoven: Hmmm... one of the Razumovsky's for enjoyment or a late quartet for transcendental bonus points?
Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet.
Janacek: Kreutzer, though it's a bit of a toss.
Bartok: Oy veh. No, I can't yet decide.

Change: Chuck one (Ravel?), enter: Webern, Langsamer Satz!
Change: Chuck Mozart, enter: Mendelssohn, op.81
Considering Two Pieces for String Quartet by Cage, but that's nonsense. I wouldn't pick that over Haydn or Jongen, for that matter. I just like it.

[ritter]

Let's see...

The list (in alphabetical order):
Beethoven: SQ No. 16 in F major, op. 135
Berg: Lyric Suite
Carter: SQ 1
Debussy: Quatuor
Enesco: SQ Op. 22 No. 2
C. Halffter: SQ No. 2 "Mémoires" -- which quotes the Beethoven op. 135 
Haydn: SQ in C major, Op. 76, No. 3 "Emperor"
Ravel: Quatuor
Schoenberg: SQ No. 2

Honorable mention:
Pierre Boulez: Livre pour quatuor. A  tough nut to crack, but one that yields new rewards with each repeated listening. The recent(ish) recording by the Quatuor Diotima was revelatory...