Your favorite string quartet cycle/s

[Thatfabulousalien]

What ones are your personal favorite string quartet cycles? 

[kishnevi]

Haydn
Beethoven
Villa Lobos
Shostakovich
Carter
Ligeti, if his works qualify as a full cycle.

[Mahlerian]

Bartok
Beethoven
Carter
Haydn
Mozart
Schoenberg

Among individual contributions, Berg, Boulez, Debussy, Ravel, and Webern stand out.

[Todd]

Haydn
Beethoven
Shostakovich
Bartok
Janacek
Prokofiev
Ligeti
Martinu
Dvorak

[Dee Sharp]

Bacewicz
Bartok
Beethoven
Haydn
Shostakovich
Villa Lobos

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I can narrow it down to the following:

Ligeti
Bartók
Coates
Schoenberg
Sculthorpe
Nishimura
Beethoven
Prokofiev
Mozart
Ferneyhough
Carter
Schnittke
Shostakovich
Gubaidulina
Rihm
Sciarrino

[vandermolen]

Bloch
Miaskovsky
Shostakovich

Plus the two by Vaughan Williams

[Jo498]

Beethoven
Haydn
Bartok
Shostakovich
Mozart (despite 11 early pieces, the mature 10 are good enough to rank highly)
Mendelssohn
Schumann
Brahms
Schubert
Dvorak (Dvorak's and Schubert's early quartets are often forgettable but both wrote at least 3 very good or even great quartets, so they deserve to be named if Brahms and Schumann are)

I hesitate to call less than 3 pieces a "cycle", otherwise I'd nominate Berg as well. Still not sufficiently familiar with Zemlinsky, Schoenberg... to rate them.

[amw]

Bartok
Beethoven
Carter
Haydn
Mozart
Schoenberg

Good list.

I'll add Ferneyhough, Schumann, Xenakis and Dvořák. Maybe also Hindemith.

[NikF]

The two that would come on top of any list I might make would be Shostakovich and Bartok.

[Florestan]

Leaving aside the big names

Dittersdorf
Boccherini
Arriaga
Spohr
Donizetti

Hugo Wolf's only SQ

And if we stretch the notion of strings to include guitar (which is not much of a stretch, actually), Paganini''s 15 quartets for guitar and strings

[ritter]

Haydn (although I still have quite a few to explore)
Beethoven
Schoenberg
Enesco (if only 2 can be considered a "cycle")
Carter
Cristóbal Halffter

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I can narrow it down to the following:

Ligeti
Bartók
Coates
Schoenberg
Sculthorpe
Nishimura
Beethoven
Prokofiev
Mozart
Ferneyhough
Carter
Schnittke
Shostakovich
Gubaidulina
Rihm
Sciarrino

I should also add Xenakis as I feel his string quartets are some of the most original works for string quartet of the latter half of the 20th century, and also they are some of his most beautiful compositions.

Also, having only heard about two or three string quartets by Ben Johnston in the past, I feel I should probably explore them more. I am listening to number 7 right now and it's really good fun! ^_^

[aesthetic]

Not mentioned enough:

Mendelssohn (6)
Janacek (2)
Schubert (Nos 12 through 15 constitute his cycle of mature quartets)
Schnittke (4)
Martinu (7)

Not mentioned at all:

Gorecki (3)
Szymanowski (2)
Glass (5, although No. 6 & No. 7 haven't been recorded)
Tchaikovsky (3)
Reich (I'm thinking of Different Trains and Triple Quartet)
Riley (there must be over a dozen of these)
Smetana (2)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Not mentioned enough:

Mendelssohn (6)

Ah, yes I agree actually. I love these works but honestly I am not really familiar with the last four of them as I am very familiar with the first two.

I am definitely going to add Schumann to my list of favourites as those quartets are, for me, some of the most enjoyable string quartets any Romantic era composer has composed.

[North Star]

Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Brahms
Dvorak
Janacek (if 2 counts as a cycle)
Prokofiev
Bartók
Shostakovich
Britten
Schnittke
Xenakis
Carter

[nathanb]

I can narrow it down to the following:

Ligeti
Bartók
Coates
Schoenberg
Sculthorpe
Nishimura
Beethoven
Prokofiev
Mozart
Ferneyhough
Carter
Schnittke
Shostakovich
Gubaidulina
Rihm
Sciarrino
Xenakis

Lachenmann? Dusapin? Scelsi? Hosokawa? You know it's not that easy

[Karl Henning]

Haydn
Beethoven
Bartók
Nielsen
Shostakovich
Britten
Carter
Wuorinen

[James]

Bartók 6 is the only "cycle" I care about.

[Karl Henning]

Haydn
Beethoven
Bartók
Nielsen
Shostakovich
Britten
Carter
Wuorinen

Well, and Schoenberg, of course.