Schönberg's String Quartets

[rubio]

Which are your favourite recordings of these terrific String Quartets? So far I have just heard the Arditti Quartet and they are excellent (w/ Dawn Upshaw as soloist). I'm very interested to know how the Prazak Quartet and the Juilliard Quartet fare in these works and how they compare to the Arditti.

       

[val]

The version of the Juilliard Quartet is very balanced but it always seemed to me a little abstract, in special in the 2nd and the 4th. The First Quartet, however, is very good, tense, dramatic.

The version of the Prazak has more dynamic and contrasts and much more expression. In the First Quartet they have not, perhaps, the same perfection and balance of the Juilliard, but I prefer them in the others, with more emotion and, unlike the Juilliard, never too dense.
The 4th Quartet by the Prazak - they recorded recently a new version - is extraordinary. 

[mjwal]

Obviously the old scratchy Kolisch recordings, for obvious reasons e.g. Schoenberg was there when they were made & speaks an appreciation also on the records plus they have an unparalleled radical approach. I like the Lasalle #2 with Margaret Price, though on LP the Neues Wiener Streichquartett present an interesting ripely romantic alternative with Evelyn Lear. I have the Schoenberg Quartet #1, good but too thick, somehow. #3 I have with the Buchberger - the disc includes an illustrated analysis of the work.  The 4th I have by the Wihan Qt coupled with Pfitzner - beautifully articulated, mysterious and translucently recorded, it has to be my favourite overall. The Arditti are not really my bag in Berg, ergo...The Wihan would be my choice if they did a complete set.