To foster a lighter note: Graham, are you sure the lock is not provided to keep others out but rather to prevent a seriously ticked-off ex-solicitor roaming the halls belting out Lohengrin at every opportunity…? 
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If I were going to belt out any music at them, it would have to be the best album that it has ever been my pleasure to hear {and almost certainly the best album that I will ever hear in my lifetime), Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ - so far ahead of any other album that I’ve ever heard that it’s ridiculous!
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I’ll give that one a try over the weekend then😁
If you have never heard it before, you are in for a very special treat.
But it is unlike any other album that I have ever heard (I couldn’t think of anything remotely similar except for the seven, plus a few live ones, made by his father Tim Buckley), so prepare for something very different and unusual. You may, of course, recognise Laughing Lennie’s ‘Hallelujah’ (crucified, after JB’s account, by Leona Lewis or some other popstrel on a TV talent show).
I am listening to the Bartok String Quartets this afternoon, the older performance by the Juilliard on Columbia. I bought the Speakers Corner reissue when it came out a few years ago, but I found this minty copy last week of the original for just $13 for the 3-LP set. Will see if it sounds better or not.
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Goodness, you did well to find a ‘minty’ copy of those. It’s not music that I know (indeed I’m not as well up on Bartok’s music as I should be), but I should make an effort to hear more.
The Bartok quartets stand with others (like Hadyn, Mozart, Beethoven) in the great cycles of the genre. Another celebrated performance is that by the Tokyo Quartet on DG. I have that also, but like the Juilliard better.
I also like Bartok quite a bit.
The only great sets of String Quartets that I know well are those of Beethoven and Mozart.
I have all the Beethoven on LPs and CDs from the technically perfect Quartetto Italiano (Philips LPs) and the more ‘challenging’ Vegh Quartet (Auvidis CDs). Both wonderful, but the interpretations are so different that they could almost be different music.
I have the Mozart String Quartets on old Alban Berg discs, when they were recording for Telefunken, before their switch to EMI.
One suggestion for you. Mozart wrote a few (six?) String Quintets towards the end of his (horribly short) life, which I think contain some of the deepest, most heartfelt music that he ever wrote. The Grumiaux Quintet recorded them complete for Philips in the late 60s/early 70s. Extraordinarily deep and powerful music, unlike anything that even Mozart ever wrote elsewhere. True ‘desert island’ music, and nowhere near as well-known as it should be. The music brings me to tears every time that I listen to it, so I tend to keep it to listen to for truly special occasions.
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I have both of those Beethoven quartet sets on LP. The Quatuor Vegh were originally on the now-defunct Valois label, and that’s what I have (rather than the CD reissue).
I also have the Mozart set by the Alban Berg Quartett on Telefunken. It’s one of the first classical box sets I ever bought and I still enjoy it. I also have the complete Mozart Quartets by the Quartetto Italiano on Phillips.
I suggest you explore some of the Haydn String Quartets. He invented the genre after all, wrote many excellent one. They were all recorded by the Aeolian Quartet and are very good. I suggest you start with the Op. 76 & 77 quartets.
I do not have that Philips set of the quintets, but I have two of them on a single LP on the Valois label. I haven’t played them in years so I just pulled the record out to play later. I will look for the Philips set.
I just upgraded to a Lyra Atlas Lambda SL cartridge and an rediscovering the joys of well-played, well-recorded music. At the moment it’s the DG LP of Kubelik/BRSO’s Mahler Titan.
It just so happens there was one copy of that Mozart Quintet set on Philips, available in Mint- condition from the U.S. so I ordered it on your recommendation. Thanks for the suggestion.
All lovely stuff!
Kubelik’s Mahler recordings have tended to fly ‘under the radar’ over the years, compared to those of Solti, Abbado, Bernstein, Tennstedt and others. His early Berlin and Munich recordings for DGG were (I think) the first ever complete Mahler symphony cycle.
But it is also possible to buy what were originally radio recordings that he made in studio conditions in Munich with his Bavarian RSO, and now released on CD on the Audite label. They can be easily found on the German Amazon site. They are superbly recorded and played discs. I can’t imagine why they were never released as a set in a ‘big box’.
Oh Chr*st, I do hope that you enjoy it. I can’t imagine that you won’t, but even so!
I have just bought the downloads of those Mozart Quintet recordings, at least I think they are the same recordings, from Presto Music. I listened to the samples and they sound totally lovely.
Well, then, you have to buy the Haydn Op. 76/77 and we’ll be even. 
If it makes you feel better, I looked it up in my copy of the Pengiun guide and – not that I always agree with what they think – they gush over that particular recording of the Mozart quintets.
Hello, David. If I were pressed into having to have only one ‘group’ of Mozart’s music, it would have to be either the three Da Ponte operas or the string quintets, even though that means abandoning a vast amount of incomparable music.
The Kubelik set I have are what were recorded for DGG in the 60s and then reissued together as a 14-LP box set on DG 2720 033. There was also a 2720 063 Anniversary Edition. I have that too, but the records aren’t in great condition. My 2720 033 set is minty.
I absolutely love the opening of Haydn’s Op77 No1 but I have never had it on record, so I shall have to find a good recording on LP or CD.
PS Have just looked for this on Amazon (UK and Germany), and cannot find a single LP or CD. Odd how this happens sometimes.
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Josquin!
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Amazon UK has quite a few CDs of that music right now. If you search on Haydn Op 77 then you should find them.
Hi Graham - on the topic of John Culshaw, he only produced with Solti Strauss’ Arabella, Salome and Elektra, Wagner’s Ring and Verdi’s Don Carlos. Culshaw left Decca shortly after doing Walkure. Solti’s subsequent recordings for Decca were produced by Christopher Raeburn or Ray Minshull.
Cheers
EJ