Favorite in-print complete Beethoven SQ box

[DavidW]

Help me select a box set!  Tell me your favorite.  I tried to make a complete list, but I know that I probably failed.  Write in whatever doesn't appear here.  I can look over posts and count up whatever is not on the poll.  If there is more than one IN-PRINT cycle by an ensemble, please disambiguate for me.  If there is something that I thought was in-print but is actually oop let me know.

Other than that you are allowed up to 3 choices so no need to pull hair trying to choose one.

[Brahmsian]

Italiano and Takacs.

Takacs has the best Op. 135 I've heard.

I love my Italiano set.  Most listened to box set ever since I started getting into classical music. 

[Todd]

Can't believe the Vegh are out of print.  Anyway, the Prazak definitely for me.  And the Budapest, twice.  The mono set on United Archives and the stereo on Sony.

[springrite]

OTHER just might end up leading, so you'd better ask them to specify....

Talich in my case (as other). My other voted went to Amadeus and Alban Berg.

[Sergeant Rock]

Suske, Leipzig Gewandhaus and....damn, hard to choose between my old favorites, Italiano or Budapest.

Sarge

[Todd]

Talich in my case (as other).

It's not in print, just like the Vegh.  I checked both before answering.  What kind of crazy world are we living in?

[Opus106]

Alban Berg.

Which one?

[DavidW]

Which one?

I don't think that the live one is in print.

[Opus106]

I don't think that the live one is in print.

Oh. I did not know that.

[DavidW]

Well of course if anyone sees it for sale, let me know!

btw the new reissue is for the stereo set, it's just different packaging.

[Opus106]

Well of course if anyone sees it for sale, let me know!

Bits and pieces are reasonably priced.

btw the new reissue is for the stereo set, it's just different packaging.

There was a mono set?

[DavidW]

Bits and pieces are reasonably priced.

There was a mono set?

I meant the studio set, sorry being hungry made my brain squishy.

[Brian]

Vermeer. I downloaded the MP3s from Amazon for something like $22, and love it. Big romantic interpretations with plushy sound, so don't expect it to be HIPpie. If I win the lotto, I'm buying the Prazak first thing.

[DavidW]

If I win the lotto, I'm buying the Prazak first thing.

It's only $80 (bargain priced)!  This poll would push me towards the Italians but I think I might go for Prazak anyway.  I just kind of assumed that Budapest would be the winner, but it's not.

We will see, I expect like the last poll to see more voters on another parts of the world vote in overnight.

[Brian]

It's only $80 (bargain priced)!  This poll would push me towards the Italians but I think I might go for Prazak anyway.

You could go for both; based on my understanding, they're stylistically opposites. The Vermeer are apparently very close to the Italians, according to Scarpia.

And I have three LvB quartet cycles... all cost me under $30 a pop. I'm an hourly temp, $80 is full price for me 

[DavidW]

I'm sorry to hear that Brian.

[kishnevi]

Considering that I've not heard many of the performances in your poll,  I'll just say I have the Artemis, the Berg,  some of the Emerson and some of the Takacs, and the Italiano.  The Endellion is literally in the mail to me now.

But there's also the Guarnieri, which I have in a Brilliant re-issue from not too long ago.  Isn't that still in print?

At any rate, I like Artemis, and I "learned" the quartets with Quartetto Italiano.  But what I've heard of the Takacs,  I like very much.  So those are the three I'll vote for.

[DavidW]

Woops!  Good catch Jeffrey.  If Guarneri were in the poll, would it replace any of the three you voted for?  I'll count it if so (and mentally reduce one from whatever you knock off).

[kishnevi]

Woops!  Good catch Jeffrey.  If Guarneri were in the poll, would it replace any of the three you voted for?  I'll count it if so (and mentally reduce one from whatever you knock off).

Probably would not.  They're a cheaper alternative to the Italianos, perhaps.  And I emphasize the word perhaps.

I also forgot I have the Hungarian recordings as part of a larger set that I have not yet played a note of.

And I think the Tokyo's Harmonia Mundi cycle is in print,  even if not boxed into a discrete set, and not just the older set now available in a Sony budget set.  I have one installment of the HM cycle, and did not feel compelled to get more.

[DavidW]

I didn't know that the HM Tokyo cycle has been completed, woops.  Nobody seems to like Tokyo in Beethoven anyway though...

I remembered that I did extensive youtube listening to Artemis Q in Beethoven, and really liked them.  More than I like the Italians in general that is for sure.  And even more than the fast, modernist stylings of the czech/hungarian ensembles... so...

I'm going to buy the Artemis Q set, and down the road I'm going to upgrade my Leipzig Gewandhaus set from mp3 to cd.  In the meantime I'm going to listen to Gewandhaus in the office (on my mp3 player).  Perfect music for test making!