Schneider Quartet Haydn, Op. 76

At long last I get to continue with my project of posting the Schneider Quartet recordings of the Haydn String Quartets. It is one of the principle reasons for having started the blog.

Since I did not have the last two quartets of Op. 76, one of the visitors to the blog kindly offered to supply me with them, so that I could post a complete set. The two files were provided to me by Jonathan Angel in unrestored FLAC . I did some decrackling and a very slight noise mask to get rid of persistent noise that would not otherwise filter out. The noise mask was set to .3 in DartPro 24. Thank you to Jonathan for allowing me to offer the complete Op. 76, surely one of Haydn's supreme achievements.

I am posting those last two two quartets first. Nos. 3 and 4 (The Emperor and Sunrise) are almost ready. Check back to this post over the next few days for the one through four, which I will be adding shortly, with the included note by Karl Geiringer.


http://vinylfatigue.blogspot.com/2011/03/haydnschneider-quartet-links-removed.html

Schneider Quartet Haydn Op. 50

For some time now I've been neglecting one of the main reasons I started the blog: Posting digital versions of the Schneider Quartet recordings of the Haydn Quartets, at least as many of them as I have.

Today I am putting up the first two quartets of Op. 50, No. 1 in B flat and No. 2 in C. The other four will follow shortly, so check back to this posting to which I will simply add the others over the next several days.

June 6, 2010

The 3rd and 4th quartets in the group are now available in the same folder, linked below.

The 5th and 6th quartets of op 50 have now been posted.

http://vinylfatigue.blogspot.com/2011/03/haydnschneider-quartet-links-removed.html

Schneider Quartet Haydn Op. 33

I'll be doing the art work and CD inserts for this and for the Op. 20 post over the next several days, posting them by the weekend. I wanted to make this set of quartets available in the meantime, though. Their wit and good humor can't help by raise one's spirits during the endless winter. I cannot keep from giggling at the pizzicato chords in No. 4 that announce the end of the rollicking good time that the last movement of that quartet presents. Then there is, famously, the joke at the end of No. 2 for which the quartet got its nickname. All and all a group with perhaps less deep emotional engagement than the previous Op. 20, but impeccably crafted employing Haydn's new techniques of thematic development, every one of them thoroughly engaging and shot through with enviable wit.

http://vinylfatigue.blogspot.com/2011/03/haydnschneider-quartet-links-removed.html

Schneider Quartet Haydn Op. 20

I'm behind on scanning and photographing jacket covers and making CD inserts, so I am posting the link to the main Op. 20 folder without anything except the music files, in order to make the performances available without accessory material.

The post will be revised, and all the other goodies included at some point, including a consideration of where Op. 20 stands in Haydn's output. In the meantime, download and enjoy the music and these great performances:

http://vinylfatigue.blogspot.com/2011/03/haydnschneider-quartet-links-removed.html

Schneider Quartet Haydn Op. 17

Here is another post in the ongoing project to get as many of the Schneider Quartet recordings of Haydn online. Here is the first record of Op. 17, No. 1 in E Major and No. 4 in C minor. The other four quartets will go up over the next week or two, hopefully. My LP copies, bought used over the years, are not always in as good shape as I remember them being, but the renovated files nonetheless sound good to me, even if working from a pristine set of LPs would be a dream come true. I hope, as these posts are discovered, that others enjoy the performances as much as I do. Starting with this post, MP3s will be at a resolution of 254 kbps instead of 320. Posting MP3s larger than the lossless flac files made no sense to me.

All files, flac, mp3, and cover art, are in the folder linked below:

http://vinylfatigue.blogspot.com/2011/03/haydnschneider-quartet-links-removed.html

Schneider Quartet Haydn: Op. 42, Op. 77, Op. 103

Here's another in the ongoing project to post as many of these Schneider Quartet/Haydn recordings as I can. I have these particular quartets in the boxed version that includes two LPs. They all fit on one CD, though, thus I've included a portion of the box cover as a front CD insert as well as the record jacket fronts for both LPs in the linked folder.

The Op. 42 has always been a personal favorite of mine, and in this as well as the other works on this set, the Schneider group, led by a leader famous for his deeply felt readings, strikes just the right balance between emotional depth and formal elegance, in technically accomplished performances. Those who emphasize the formal aspect of Haydn's work (impressive though it be) at the expense of the humor, pathos, the melancholy or genial reflection, the unbridled joy, just do not do justice to this supremely and completely human composer, whose great genius was to retain at all times an emotional center while still expressing the range of human feeling.

http://vinylfatigue.blogspot.com/2011/03/haydnschneider-quartet-links-removed.html

Schneider Quartet Haydn, Op.51, The Seven Last Words by the

The Schneider Quartet recorded the first complete cycle of Haydn string quartets for The Haydn Society in the early and mid fifties, and thus made all of them available on record for the first time. This alone, and the fact that they have gone unreleased on CD, would justify the present post. But there is much more. Alexander Schneider, 1st violin; Isidore Cohen, second violin; Karen Tuttle, viola; and Madeline Foley, cello, have bequeathed to us some of the finest Haydn performances on record. If latter day tastes prefer a less full-blooded approach to this and other classical era composers, these performances nonetheless are right up my alley.

Why this historically important set has not been issued on CD is something that has baffled me for a while. I've been told the original tapes have been lost, but surely pristine LPs would work to bring the recordings into the digital age and make them known to a new audience. This and subsequent posts from these recordings are all from LPs, in good but not pristine condition, in my personal collection. I hope to renovate and post as many as I have, but, unfortunately, I do not have them all, and a complete digital issue of them is a pressing (no pun intended) need.

http://vinylfatigue.blogspot.com/2011/03/haydnschneider-quartet-links-removed.html