There's the Arditti recording which will certainly have that effect (if you can get hold of it, and sadly I don't have a copy any more). Although there are some who would say that it sounds more like Xenakis than Beethoven. What I do have is the Alban Berg, which is also pretty good (and maybe still available in a cheap box set with all the other quartets). The Quartetto Italiano are marvellous in most of the late quartets but I think your socks might well stay on for their op.133.

I was thinking the Hagen would be a quartet I'd very much like to hear playing this piece and I didn't know they'd recorded it. That's one for the wish list.

Should that not read "But it seems to be available only on DVD now"?

Impossible to reach a final decision on Op 130 with Grosse Fuge but I'd probably opt for the Complete String Quartets by The Lindsays - a real bargain set if you shop around - as they also provide an alternative finale to Op 130.

I listen to many recordings, from my shelves, with great affection as they have been collected over several decades and I remember the special frisson when I budgeted for a complete LP box set of the Busch Quartet recordings on 'direct metal remastering', in the early 80s, and Sally from Direction/Caruso & Co (of blessed memory) rang me to say they were available for collection.    They were remastered by EMI, from a pre-war set, on HMV Treasury.

The Budapest String Quartet grosse fuge (from their first set in the 1950's) is also a treasure.   Alongside this, I'd place the Late String Quartets by The Hollywood String Quartet, beautifully transferred by Testament in 1996. Tully Potter's liner notes add:

        "Most important of all, they have that essential Beethovenian quality which can only
         be described as 'virtuosity humbling itself'.   The composer who makes the sternest
         demands, can be the cruellest of all to those who indulge in any kind of display."

If pressed to leave my home at a few minutes notice, I'd opt for the Lindsay recordings and, when nobody was looking, would add the 7CD 1927-32 HMV 'Potted' Ring cycle into my bag, too.   

Thank you, TF.    Happy memories of The Lindsay String Quartet at the Wigmore Hall, for many years, before they became The Lindsay's - a bit camp but a good family association in the change of name.  On my retirement, it was a pleasure to see them here, at York, as they were based in Sheffield and we were on their touring circuit.    Much sadness when they disbanded a few years ago.   

I'm sure it doesn't.

Years ago there was a Collegium Aureum Quartet recording of op. 132 on LP which I had an obsession with. I had other, stronger, obsessions in the 1970s in my teens, but I liked that record (which I got for not much in the WH Smith sale in Putney)

But it's long gone.

Otherwise it's the earlier quartets, mainly, that have been recorded by 'period' groups.

The op. 18 quartets have been done several times: Quatuor Mosaïques, Turner Quartet on Harmonia Mundi (I have the latter, & they are very good: though out of print now), op. 59/3 gets done. Op. 74. I suppose period quartets tend to be comprised of people who, principally, do other things.

This is very fine

http://www.amazon.de/Streichquartette-Op-18-59-3/dp/B000042OPW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1226010731&sr=1-1

but, erm, it's out of print. Very much out of print

No, indeed.

I haven't listened to anything by Quatuor Mosaïques since I heard them at the Wigmore a couple of years ago. Horrible it was.   I haven't even listened since then to their recordings which I already had. It was that dodgy.

And, well. There really isn't that much else on offer in period-instrument-land as far as quartets go.

I think I have the Ardittis somewhere on the shelves back home. I can check in about a week.