Charles Ives’s innovations, his seemingly cluttered experiments, his use of quotation (from indigenous folk-tunes to Beethoven’s Fifth!) and his visionary ability to suggest and collide his childhood (Holidays Symphony) and look beyond ourselves (The Unanswered Question) has his detractors seeing him, at best, as eccentric. This CD brings maximum contrast from the off – first comes the 90-second Scherzo, gnarled and angular, from a European acolyte of radical Schoenberg maybe, which is followed by the hymnal opening of the First Quartet, music that became the third movement of Ives’s remarkable Fourth Symphony, and which could easily have been composed by Dvorak in America, save the harmony wouldn’t have ’slipped’ so much! This Quartet, completed in 1902, is in the conventional four movements.

The pairing of the String Quintet in G major, Op. 77, and the String Quartet in F major, Op. 96 ("American"), both major Dvorák chamber works, is a common one, but this one has several aspects setting it apart. Most distinctive is the sound from the German audiophile label MDG, working in an old abbey hall. The space is warm, clear, and perfectly sized for the music, in other words as close as you can get to actually having been there in the late 19th century when the music was first played. Moreover, the prolific Leipzig String Quartet, joined in Op. 77 by double bassist Alois Posch, delivers a superior performance of the "American" quintet that gets away from the overly consistent tone that mars so many Dvorák performances.

It may well be that it is not chamber music that immediately comes to mind when you think of Sibelius. That's fair enough but he certainly wrote pieces for chamber groupings. There are, for example some single movements for quartet composed when he was a young man. Then comes this A minor quartet of 1889 and there's at least one other apart from the B flat quartet known as Voces Intimae. There are also a few pieces for strings and piano like the Piano Trio of 1884.

On MDG, the Meccore String Quartet has recorded Edvard Grieg’s three works for string quartet, of which only String Quartet No. 1 in G minor is in complete form. Grieg’s music is often seen as defined by a small body of works: Piano Concerto, Peer Gynt suites, Holberg Suite, Lyric Pieces for solo piano including the notable Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. Nevertheless, there are a number of gems to discover, including the Cello Sonata, the three Violin Sonatas and the G minor String Quartet performed here.

The nine-time GRAMMY Award-winning Emerson String Quartet has firmly established its authority in interpreting Beethoven’s string quartets since its first Beethoven Cycle performed in 1980 through its complete recording of his quartets on Deutsche Grammophon which won a 1998 GRAMMY Award.

Rich, warm, ripe, and full of wisdom, the Emerson Quartet's 2007 recording of Brahms' three string quartets for Deutsche Grammophon is not only the finest recording of the group's 30-year career, but the recording that confirms its title as America's Greatest Quartet. Here, the Emerson's mastery of ensemble playing is complete. With its easy interplay, impeccable balances, and effortless tempo rubato, the Emerson has the vital cogency of a great jazz quartet. Beyond the technical, the Emerson's wholly unified interpretations are overwhelming.

The Leipzig String Quartet is back! After a break of two years the top ensemble from Saxony now continues its Haydn edition. Nos. 1, 2, and 6 round off Haydn’s op. 64 - a marvellous combination of emotional dedication and consummate classicism. Haydn, the glorious inventor of the string quartet, took the genre to new heights in his op. 64. Perfectly balanced in form and harmony, the pieces comprising this number are directly interrelated. In London Haydn’s career once again truly blossomed. The Quartets op. 64 must have played a considerable role in this development, and with the Leipzig String Quartet we immediately understand why this was so.

Gabriel Fauré has frequently been termed “the father of Impressionism”; the Parisian music world of Fauré’s time was characterised by emancipation from German hegemony in chamber music after the traumatic outcome of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and by the beginnings of an original French musical language beyond the opera. Fauré shows himself from his Late Romantic and passionate sides: already the beginning impetuously rushes forward, but for all its passion it quite strictly and surprisingly follows the formal conventions in its polyphony. The Mozart Piano Quartet skilfully combines the traditional with the new; in three-dimensional sound the enormous dynamic expressive breadth of the ensemble develops its full potential.

Four Experts it was with this headline that the press welcomed Vol. 10 of the encyclopedic Haydn series by the Leipzig String Quartet. The result is uncommonly rewarding in that as light is shed on a highly interesting developmental advance from divertimento mirth to mature chamber music and straight into the formative years of a revolutionary new musical genre. The Leipzig String Quartet are renowned musicians who have gained universal critical praise for their previous series of Mozart and Beethoven String Quartets. This next volume in their exploration of Haydn't oevre is a welcome addition to the catalogue.

This fine CD is a thoughtful and very generous combination of three late-Romantic pieces: one well known (the Brahms), one less known (the Zemlinsky), and one (the Rabl) that appears to have its first ever recording here. All three pieces are served admirably by this remarkable ensemble, and also by sensitive high-quality engineering. While all three are excellent, I agree with the last reviewer that the Rabl stands out from the other two.

As one goes along in their classical-music journey, you eventually start moving beyond the "safeness" of the major composers and exploring the lesser-known "minor" composers - and often discovering soon enough some of the "hidden treasures" of the classical repertoire. And among some of these treasures are the clarinet concertos and the featured quartets on this CD by the Finnish-born virtuoso/composer, Bernhard Crusell.

From the introduction by Alessandra Carlotta Pellegrini, Scientific director Isabella Scelsi Foundation: “This double CD again makes it possible, after a long interval, to experience the pleasure of listening to the complete version of the string quartets by Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) in the masterly interpretation by the Arditti Quartet, accompanied by two cornerstones of his production, Khoom and the Trio for strings. The CD was recorded shortly after the death of the Maestro and constitutes a precious witness for two series of reasons.

The players of the Leipzig String Quartet come from the veteran ranks of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. They have recorded a variety of standard quartet for the German audiophile label MDG, often using an old monastery farmhouse whose sound environment is nothing short of ideal. They are in the midst of a cycle of Haydn quartets that began with some of the more unorthodox items and with volume 6 reaches the Op. 33 quartets, arguably the founding documents of the true High Classical quartet style. The quartet plays on period instruments (and modern replicas of period bows), resulting in a bright sound and precise articulation that doesn't differ sharply from modern-instrument performances. And indeed the performances fall into a long tradition.

These performances of Szymanowski's String Quartets and Webern's Langsamer Satz by Carmina Qt are hard to describe with words. The ensemble captures varying shade and light of Szymanowski's magical soundscape by vivid imagination and formidable technical refinement. There is a wondefully crafted performance of Langsamer Satz by Leipziger Qt (MDG), but this one surpasses it by the sheer beauty of tonal blend and the emotional depth and intensity. It doesn't surprise me that this disc received 1992 Gramophone Award in chamber music category and was nominated for Grammy award.

Founded in 1992, the New York-based Brentano Quartet is known for its interpretations combining perfect technique and matchless musicality. Those qualities are even more obvious in this series of late Beethoven quartets with this first volume bringing together the Op. 127 and 131. This pure crystal of intelligence and brilliance will doubtless constitute a milestone.