Juilliard String Quartet, Complete Epic recordings, 1956/66

[HighlandDougie]

According to Discogs, recorded in 1963:

May 7, 8 (N°3), 10, 14 (N°6), 15, 16 (N°4), 21, 24 (N°2)
September 18, 20 (N°1), 23, 26 (N°5).

SAX 5261 (Columbia, UK, 1965, as cited above) sold for £367, second-hand, last year. Eek!

Their appearance on UK Columbia, rather than on UK CBS, suggests that they were also Epic Recordings (like some of George Szell's Beethoven) but they were released on Columbia in the USA (box set in 1965). That - released on Columbia rather than Epic in the USA - would seem to be the reason for their omission from this new box.

[Bryn]

Recorded in 1963
May 7, 8 (N°3), 10, 14 (N°6), 15, 16 (N°4), 21, 24 (N°2)
September 18, 20 (N°1), 23, 26 (N°5).

SAX 5261 (Columbia, UK, 1965, as cited above) sold for £367, second-hand, last year. Eek!

My first encounter with the 1963 set was via the mid-price CBS re-issue. Prior to that I only had the Fine Arts on Saga and Supraphon recordings of the 3rd and 4th (can't recall the musicians on those). The Juilliard 1963 seemed just too gentile for me at the time. Later I came to appreciate that there was more than one way to play these masterpieces of the genre. I am glad to have the 1949 and 1963 Juilliard and the CD transfers of the Fine Arts recordings among the plethora of recordings of these work on hand. The 1981 Juilliard is very rarely given a spin.

[AmpH]

I'm a bit confused about the dates. I have the original LP issues of the Juilliard Quartet playing the six Bartok quartets. They are on the Columbia label, SAX 5260-2, and discs and sleeve notes (by James Goodfriend) are both dated 1965. Perhaps the recordings were actually made earlier, but not issued on LP until 1965, whereas the CDs (presumably previous posts refer to CD issues) revert to the date of recording?

See the photograph in the top left of Bryn's post no 8 above - this is the back of the West Hill Radio Archives CD box which I also have and which contains the first Juilliard Quartet cycle based on restorations from Columbia LP's ML 4278 - 4280 inclusive and the recording dates for the cycle are given in the CD booklet ( and on the back of the box ) as between 18th March 1949 and 18th August 1949.

Whether the above quoted LP's used in these particular restorations were the original issues or later issues is no doubt something you will know far more about than me, but the link below in respect of the first two quartets on ML 4278 suggests a 1950 issue, at least in the US.

https://www.discogs.com/B%C3%A9la-Bart%C3%B3k-The-Juilliard-String-Quartet-Quartet-No-1-In-A-Minor-Quartet-No-2-In-A-Minor/release/5790391

[AmpH]

A particularly warm welcome for today's delivery of Juilliard String Quartet:
The complete Epic recordings, 1956/66, the first-ever release in a single
11-CD edition; 4LPs appearing for the first time on CD, 8CDs remastered
from the analogue tapes; Facsimile LP sleeves and labels, 40 page booklet with full
discographical notes. A treat to explore!

Contents include Mendelssohn- Str Qts 2 & 3, Beethoven- 'Rasumovsky & Harp Qts,
Benjamin Lees, Str Qt 1, Wm Denny, Str Qt 2, Mozart -The Haydn Qts, 14,15,16,17,18, & 19,
Haydn-Str Qt in G major, Str Qt in C major, Str Qt in E Major; Schubert- Str Qt No15-D887,
Brahms- Quintet, Op34, Schubert- Str Qt, No 13-Rosamunde,D804, StrQt No9,D173

Memories to treasure.

Very much looking forward to receiving my copy of the box set as well.

[umslopogaas]

Many thanks for this information. I am sure Richard is right about the dates, i had forgotten that the Julliards recorded in the States. As far as I know, American Columbia was an independent company, but British Columbia was a semi-autonomous entity within HMV. I presume therefore that they licensed (I'm sure I spell licensed as licenced, but the spellcheck doesnt like it) the recordings from the American company, which explains the later date for the UK issue; they may have waited to see how well the American issue sold, before deciding whether to release it over here.

And I am not at all surprised at the ebay price mentioned, original UK Columbia LPs are very collectible and almost any stereo Columbia will sell for three figures. Fortunately I bought mine long ago when LPs were not nearly so valued!

[HighlandDougie]

Many thanks for this information. I am sure Richard is right about the dates, i had forgotten that the Julliards recorded in the States. As far as I know, American Columbia was an independent company, but British Columbia was a semi-autonomous entity within HMV. I presume therefore that they licensed (I'm sure I spell licensed as licenced, but the spellcheck doesnt like it) the recordings from the American company, which explains the later date for the UK issue; they may have waited to see how well the American issue sold, before deciding whether to release it over here.

And I am not at all surprised at the ebay price mentioned, original UK Columbia LPs are very collectible and almost any stereo Columbia will sell for three figures. Fortunately I bought mine long ago when LPs were not nearly so valued!

In fact, although the Juilliards recorded the set in 1963 (see my earlier post), the set wasn't released in the USA until 1965 [to be nerdish: Columbia Masterworks D3S 717 (stereo)/D3L 317 (mono)] at about the same time as the UK release(s) of them on three separate LPs. Columbia - as in the US - licensed recordings to Philips in Europe from the mid/late 1950s until 1962 (before that, it was to UK Columbia; RCA licensed their releases during that same period to HMV) they decided to launch themselves in Europe (or, at least, in the UK) as an independent entity. Because "Columbia" was already in existence in the UK as part of EMI, they used their US corporate acronym of CBS in the UK. British "Columbia" continued to license (if it's a verb, its an 's') Epic recordings (another arm of American Columbia) until, I think, 1967 or 1968. As the Juilliard Quartet's recordings usually appeared in the USA on Epic rather than Columbia, I can only assume that it was part of the UK licensing deal that their Bartok was released on EMI's Columbia label rather than on CBS. Simples!

[richardfinegold]

Play it Again, Sam - Allen seeks Keaton's advice: Oscar Peterson or Bartok. Keaton suggests playing the Peterson and leaving the Bartok out on show.

It was just Woody Allen that picked up on the American issue of that set as being some sort of a badge of culture. The set was ubiquitous in shops and music listeners homes here in the seventies. The shop owners would sell it to students as cutting edge, avant-Garde Classical Music. “Anyone one can enjoy Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. However, if you want to be a discerning intellectual of true refinement, the one that is most likely to be at that Graduate School that you are pining away for, you will buy this”. And as a sales pitch, it worked! Why? Probably because the music did sound difficult and challenging at first but after a few hearings one got to assimilate the landscape and find true pleasure.
Any way, . everyone had that set. I remember that mine was on vinyl so warped that it caused so much wow and flutter that I became confused as to this was distortion or yet another interesting Bartok time signature .
When the Emerson set came out in the early eighties it cut like a buzz saw through the Juilliard relative mildly reticent by comparison playing. I don’t think that I have heard that sixties Juilliard set since that time. I now reach for the Takaczs set.
It is a little disconcerting to hear that the formerly ubiquitous Juilliard set is such a sought after rarity

[Bryn]

It was just Woody Allen that picked up on the American issue of that set as being some sort of a badge of culture. The set was ubiquitous in shops and music listeners homes here in the seventies. The shop owners would sell it to students as cutting edge, avant-Garde Classical Music. “Anyone one can enjoy Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. However, if you want to be a discerning intellectual of true refinement, the one that is most likely to be at that Graduate School that you are pining away for, you will buy this”. And as a sales pitch, it worked! Why? Probably because the music did sound difficult and challenging at first but after a few hearings one got to assimilate the landscape and find true pleasure.
Any way, . everyone had that set. I remember that mine was on vinyl so warped that it caused so much wow and flutter that I became confused as to this was distortion or yet another interesting Bartok time signature .
When the Emerson set came out in the early eighties it cut like a buzz saw through the Juilliard relative mildly reticent by comparison playing. I don’t think that I have heard that sixties Juilliard set since that time. I now reach for the Takaczs set.
It is a little disconcerting to hear that the formerly ubiquitous Juilliard set is such a sought after rarity

I was very taken with the Emerson's QEH broadcasts but less so with their CDs. More recently the Belceas have been much favoured, and for the 2nd quartet, Brooklyn Rider. The Takacs I feel a bit equivocal about, though would not willingly part with either the CDs or the DVD of 2, 3 and 6.

[Conchis]

Play it Again, Sam - Allen seeks Keaton's advice: Oscar Peterson or Bartok. Keaton suggests playing the Peterson and leaving the Bartok out on show.

Don't Dudley Moore and Eleanor Bron have similar fun with the Bartok Quartets in the film Bedazzled?