S/D: Haydn string quartets

Is this going to reappear on ILM? If so i'll withold my post till then.....

Hm? This is ILM, isn't it?

GAH CRAP FUC BOLLOX

Bad start. sorry. Right.

You should get The Lindsays version of the Seven Last Words,(on ASV) ive got and i love it. I really do think its the 'only' one to consider of this work (in quartet form).

Otherwise yes in complete agreement, the Kodaly set is the one to go for. I have them doing op.64, op71 op.76 and op.54. Really impossible to choose a favourite, though the op.64 set is just great.
My ambition is to get the Aeolian Qt box (on Decca) in an HMV sale; this is the 'classic' cycle, and has been recommended to me by several - older - listeners who know what they're saying.

Having said that if you can find the Lindsays dics cheap (ASV recently put out a budget box of their Beethoven cycle; i nabbed it)
you should probably go for those over the Kodaly, they have a little more character and interprative muscle

It's sort of that I've already started down the Kodály road, and I'm a-gonna stick to it for now, but I might also get some alternate versions if they're highly recommended.

Part of the deal here is that I have no clear idea why I've suddenly become so intrigued by these quartets.

As for the works themselves, well none of them are tripe of course.
Perhaps ignore everything before op.33, make that the earliest set you buy. That's where he really finds his feet. And from then on he excels in the form, for me these are his best works (saving about a dozen of the symphonies). The ideas can get wonderfully dense though the overall feel remains sober but beautiful; unlike Mozart there's rarely an excess of sweetness for which one has to adjust ones palette. In op.76 you'll come across the German national anthem btw.
The slow movements in the laterquartets are really extraordinary, at least matching Mozart and Beethoven.

I just picked up the Op. 33s today, and those are the earliest I have so far. So I'll work forward from there.

I am intrigued by the idea of Haydn w/r/t the early Beethoven quartets, which truth be told are my favorites to listen to, esp. #1 and 6. At home, at least. I've enjoyed the late quartets in live concerts but never was able to get my teeth in them (follow what was going on? maintain concentration?) in recordings. (I might also have seen better quartets doing them, live, than I have on recording -- I've seen the Emerson play one of them live, I forget which one, and have the Vermeer collection.)

For Beethoven i have the Vegh qt's cycle, and as i said the Lindsays, but as far as the late quartets go only one set has really brought them alive for me - the Busch Quartet on EMI. It's a 4-disc set with nos 1, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15 + 16 on it. Really these are - im willing to stake money on it - the best string quartet performances on record. They're the only ones that finally awoke me to the music in these quartets, to the extent that i can now enjoy other versions, but these remain the most prized discs in my collection.
Suddenly you realise how amazing no.14 op.131 is, no other performance ive heard live or on disc has even come close.