Your favorite string quartet cycle/s

[North Star]

Nielsen

I need to spend more time with these.

[Todd]

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

Dvorak certainly wrote more than three great ones.

[Mahlerian]

Good list.

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

I'm not as familiar with any of those cycles as with the ones on my list, though I have really liked what I've heard of Hindemith and Schumann.

[Jo498]

Dvorak certainly wrote more than three great ones.

Certainly not certainly. I actually think he wrote only two really great ones (the last two) and another three or four pretty good ones. But there is also a half dozen meandering and fairly boring early works so that as a cycle or corpus I cannot rate it all that highly.

[Todd]

Certainly not certainly. I actually think he wrote only two really great ones (the last two) and another three or four pretty good ones. But there is also a half dozen meandering and fairly boring early works so that as a cycle or corpus I cannot rate it all that highly.

Agree that the earliest ones are not the best, but from the Ninth on, I would characterize them all as great works, though not late-LvB quality, or something like that.

[amw]

Yeah I would definitely put 10, 11, 13, 14 up there with the best quartets between Beethoven and Bartók, and probably also 9 and 12 and the Cypresses as well. The rest are a bit meh but still worth hearing once in a while.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

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

Siiiiiiigh you're right. I don't have the best memory for music i really like.....

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Updated list to fit in some others I love and to eliminate some which I don't love as much

Ligeti
Bartók
Coates
Schoenberg
Sculthorpe
Nishimura
Beethoven
Hosokawa
Scelsi
Ferneyhough
Carter
Schnittke
Shostakovich
Gubaidulina
Rihm
Sciarrino
Dillon
Schumann

And Ben Johnston will soon be joining this list I think

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Siiiiiiiigh I have not ended up with a final list yet BUT I will try again and this time I will actually see if I can narrow it down any more.........

Ligeti
Bartók
Coates
Schoenberg
Nishimura
Beethoven
Hosokawa
Scelsi
Ferneyhough
Xenakis
Carter
Schnittke
Shostakovich
Gubaidulina
Schumann
Birtwistle
Lachenmann
Johnston

I think I am finally happy with my choices

[The new erato]

I would very much like to hear the Diamond cycle, but they are so darn expensive.....

[GioCar]

Those I listen to more often are:

Mozart
Beethoven
Schubert
Janáček
Schoenberg
Bartók
Carter

[Madiel]

Beethoven
Haydn (what I have so far, still plenty to go)
Dvorak from 7 onwards
Shostakovich
Holmboe
Bartok (new discovery, and very good indeed)
Vine

I have Mozart's last 10 but I don't feel I know them well enough yet. I'm pretty sure I like Brahms and Schumann quite a bit, but again feel I'm still getting to know them.

Schubert's last 3 are great.

Various other 1s and 2s aren't what come to mind for "cycles".

[The new erato]

Carl Vine's are very good indeed. And I agree that 2 Quartets are stretching te cycle concept quite a bit.

[Karl Henning]

Hanging my head (just a little) in disgrace, I must thank Jeffrey and ørfeo for reminding me of the Villa-Lobos & Holmboe cycles, respectively.

[Karl Henning]

[...] And I agree that 2 Quartets are stretching the cycle concept quite a bit.

+1

[Madiel]

Carl Vine's are very good indeed.

SQ no.6 will premiere in August this year.

[SymphonicAddict]

Beethoven (no doubt)
Shostakovich
Bartók
Hindemith
Schubert
Mendelssohn
Dvorák
Taneyev
Borodin

I'm a fan of Brahms, bit his string quartets are the weakest in his chamber output

[Daverz]

Beethoven
Haydn Op 50
Bartok
David Post
Bloch
Schumann
Mozart Haydn and Prussian Quartets
Dvorak late quartets
Janacek
Smetana

I know the Brahms quartets are supposed to inferior, but I can never remember why, so I enjoy them anyway.

Oh, and David Diamond's quartets are great.  I got them on sale. 

[Jo498]

I do no think the Brahms' quartets are considered inferior. It's only that there are comparably few for a "cycle" (reputedly he destroyed a dozen? early quartets/attempts) and they might not be quite as accessible as some other Brahms chamber music, so they don't tend to be among the favorites among Brahms's chamber music (as compared to e.g. Beethoven where the other chamber music is dwarved by the quartets).

[Rons_talking]

Bartok
Hindemith
Schoenberg
Carter
Diamond
Villa-Lobos
Malipiero