I think it might be - I know there's a University of Manchester connection in there.

By some distance in my opinion:



(I listened to about half-a-dozen recordings a year or two back when I was getting to know these pieces.)

Regretably, it would appear that DG no longer have that Hagen disc in their catalogue. One or two places list it as available "new", but at a price I consider prohibitive. I will await a future re-issue, I think. Whatever happened to the recording in which a viola d'amore was used in the 2nd quartet?

I can report now that the Pavel Haas Quartet's recording of no. 1 together with Haas's quartets 1 and 3 has been receiving my attention in the last few minutes (or at least a fair proportion of it) - if you don't mind shelling out for two discs you get not just the Janáčeks in the only performances to match the Hagens in the Sudden rankings, but three other very fine quartets by a Janáček pupil - the kind of thing I imagine would please the sort of person who might be paying a visit to this thread...

 I, too would also opt for the Hagen Quartet on DG and Janacek's impassioned utterances also have a bonus with the addition of the Hugo Wolf's Italienische Serenade, albeit travelling in a different direction.

I also have an affection for the two Janacek quartets played by the Guarneri Quartet in their recording on Philips Classics CD in 1998 although it disappeared from the catalogue fairly smartish, possibly due to the shortfall in playing time of 41' 20".

Oh Shit!

As you were

Surely you cope OK with Handel?

I think you'd get something from the string quartets; they're the only things of his I've heard. They're not quite up there with Janáček perhaps but (a) what is? and (b) neither would Janáček be if he'd died at 45...

I'm not making any claims for quality (nor am I making a listening suggestion, at least not for you, Richard, as I think I know what your response would be ) but the music of Mr Alexander Goehr sounds really quite a lot like Janacek at times.

Georg Friedrich: I rather liked a couple of things I heard once about 3 or 4 years ago, but then I heard something else (quite long) on CD which was dire. I think I have a disc of 20th (or are they 21st?) century string quartets by him somewhere in the 'still shrink-wrapped' pile. Maybe I should give it a spin.

As for His Censeredness Sir John, I was actually listening to his new violin concerto this very afternoon on the train, more out of a sense of duty than anything (it's had some unexpectedly good reviews and I wanted to hear it for myself). It's certainly not without unexpectedly nice touches, some of them quite precisely imagined, although I think in the end I'd say they were outweighed by the longueurs (and a couple of simply inept passages).