BaL 17.02.18 - Haydn: String Quartet in G minor (Op 20 No 3)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

9.30 a.m.
Building a Library: Helen Wallace makes a personal choice from among the available recordings of Haydn's String Quartet in G minor Op 20 No 3
The six string quartets Opus 20 by Joseph Haydn were a milestone in his journey to become "the father of the string quartet". The quartets were composed in 1772 at a time of turmoil in Haydn's life, and also when he was coming into contact with the new philosophical and political ideas sweeping Europe.

Available versions:-

Amsterdam String Quartet
Angeles String Quartet
Aeolian String Quartet (download)
Auryn Quartet
Buchberger Quartet
Chiaroscuro Quartet
Daedalus Quartet
Doric String Quartet
Hagen Quartett
Leipzig String Quartet
Lindsay String Quartet
London Haydn Quartet
Kocian Quartet
Kodaly Quartet
Pellegrini Quartett
Pro Arte Quartet
Quatuor Festetics
Rubens Quartet
Schneider Quartet
Tetzlaff Quartet
Végh Quartet

[Rolmill]

I have the Quatuor Mosaiques Op.20 set, which is excellent - is it really nla?

I can see it on Amazon here. Another supplier has it as part of a 10 CD Haydn box; they say it is currently out of stock at the UK suppliers, but available to order - don't know if that meets the availability criterion for BaL!

[Bryn]

The Festetics are certainly currently available as downloads. However, their CD versions appear to have fallen out of the catalogue.

[HighlandDougie]

I have the Quatuor Mosaiques Op.20 set, which is excellent - is it really nla?

I can see it on Amazon here. Another supplier has it as part of a 10 CD Haydn box; they say it is currently out of stock at the UK suppliers, but available to order - don't know if that meets the availability criterion for BaL!

As an aside, Disques Naïve were rescued from the French equivalent of receivership in the summer of 2016 by Believe Digital. They are supposed to be re-releasing at least some of the back catalogue - and have restarted the Rinaldo Alessandrini Vivaldi edition, as MickyD highlighted in the New Releases thread in November. The new website isn't very encouraging for fans of the Mosaïques or the Quatuor Diotima (or Bertrand Chamayou) who like their music in CD form so, downloads apart (easily available from the likes of Qobuz), grab it if you see it at anything less than a stupid price.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have the Quatuor Mosaiques Op.20 set, which is excellent - is it really nla?

I can see it on Amazon here. Another supplier has it as part of a 10 CD Haydn box; they say it is currently out of stock at the UK suppliers, but available to order - don't know if that meets the availability criterion for BaL!

This is always a tricky one. As the only alternative suppliers list used versions, I suspect this one isn't generally available.

[HighlandDougie]

As the only alternative suppliers list used versions, I suspect this one isn't generally available.

I should have made my earlier post clearer: Naïve's demise as a stand-alone company in the middle of 2016 meant that physical CDs like the Mosaïques Haydn, either as individual CDs or as the 10CD set, ceased to be available from the company. The company which rescued them has made noises about the back catalogue being reissued but, on the evidence so far, they seem to prefer availability via digital means, other than for new releases such as the recent Rinaldo Alessandrini Vivaldi and the Mosaiques late Beethoven. The pre-summer 2016 physical CDs - the Diotima Schönberg et al box, for instance - which can be found either used or as hoarded stock from various Amazon Marketplace dealers et al, are now commanding increasingly inflated prices. In short, EA's suspicion that the Mosaïques has in effect been deleted from the catalogue, other than as a download, is correct, at least at the present time.

[Beef Oven!]

I hadn't realised only hard-copy is under consideration. After all, we've had download-only winners.

Time to reconsider?

Most people's libraries are on a hard-drive these days, anyway. Of the last 250 purchases I've made, only a handful have been hard copy, they've been downloads.

Arguably, streaming counts, too. Many people have 'virtual libraries' as they access their music via streaming. If it's available to stream, it's available in one's virtual library.

The building a library concept was perfect in the times of LP, cassette, CD etc, but needs bringing up to date to reflect how music is listened to at home contemporarily.

[jayne lee wilson]

Streaming certainly counted for me with these -

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=chiaroscuro+haydn+string+quartets&i=boutique

I listened often, wonderfully fresh, lithe and original readings and gorgeous sound... really lovely. But I'm still divided about "libraries" as such... I still love CDs (even for the sound alone) and buy them often... and if I stream-without-buying it usually means the music isn't yet as essential to me as it might be.... which can change.

(I ignored the BaL on the Brandenburgs thinking, oh, not those old things; I've bought 3 sets in the past week, Goebel latest (CD), Goebel original (CD) and Café Zimmermann (lossless download).... all going from streaming to so-inspired purchase.)

[waldo]

I still love CDs (even for the sound alone) and buy them often...

CDs can't have a "sound" - can they? They are just stores of digital information........aren't they? The equivalent file om a hard-drive will surely sound the same. Or am I missing something?

[Bryn]

CDs can't have a "sound" - can they? They are just stores of digital information........aren't they? The equivalent file om a hard-drive will surely sound the same. Or am I missing something?

I understood jlw to be referring to the sound being but one property of a CD which she found attractive, another possibly being the sheer physicality or the booklet.

[visualnickmos]

I don't want to break up the party, but I feel we may be wandering way off-piste....

Back to Haydn; I have just one set of his string quartets, accumulated over some years, and that is the humble Naxos set, with the rather marvelous Kodaly Quartet giving fine performances - including of course, the BaL subject in question.

[jayne lee wilson]

CDs can't have a "sound" - can they? They are just stores of digital information........aren't they? The equivalent file om a hard-drive will surely sound the same. Or am I missing something?

I'll try to come back on this when less whacked out, but I usually put sound quality differences between various digital sources (CD transports, computers, files, streams..) down to jitter: timing errors in the feed of information from transport to DAC (a computer or server may function as a "USB transport") - bitrates may come into it with streams though, even those termed CD or lossless - the Lossless 2017 Proms bitrate was probably averaging at something around 550kbps as this article reveals...http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-04...lity-flac-dash ).... I think Jim LeSurf made some similar measurements too, in HFN or in his blog somewhere... can't locate it now.

The SQ differences between my two transports and the isolated/filtered USB computer feed, all to the same DAC, are demonstrable and repeatable.
But I probably fell back in love (again...) with CD after trialling the latest version of the Marigo CD Mat over Christmas: which had such a startlingly addictive upgrading effect on my vintage Marantz transport I wanted to listen to nothing else for weeks...
Call it a bit of audiophile madness if you like (I won't mind... !), but, on a month's trial SOR... it took only a few days to become devoted to it; I'd find it hard to listen to that transport without it now.

Have a look at these.... (you might want to pour yourself a stiff drink first, or strong coffee at least....)

https://www.stereophile.com/features/368/index.html

https://www.stereophile.com/reference/590jitter/index.html

[richardfinegold]

CDs can't have a "sound" - can they? They are just stores of digital information........aren't they? The equivalent file om a hard-drive will surely sound the same. Or am I missing something?

They frequently will sound superior to the same recording being streamed, if for no other reason it eliminates the vagaries of Internet flow

[waldo]

I'll try to come back on this when less whacked out, but I usually put sound quality differences between various digital sources (CD transports, computers, files, streams..) down to jitter: timing errors in the feed of information from transport to DAC (a computer or server may function as a "USB transport") - bitrates may come into it with streams though, even those termed CD or lossless........

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Jayne. I'll be honest: I don't know what the hell to believe about any of this. I am naturally skeptical about many "audiophile" claims, but I just don't have the expertise to judge for myself. For now, I accept that speakers make a huge difference and so do DACs. But I am not at all sure about anything else - and that includes CD players, amps and cables.

But I don't know...........right now, for instance, I am using a cheap bluray player as a CD transport. I use the digital out to feed my amp. I have been assured by authoritative-sounding science people on other forums that I would be wasting money if I got a dedicated CD player. But doubts are creeping in.........

Apologies (to others) for clogging up this Haydn thread with this stuff. The subject came up and I wanted to ask about it.

[waldo]

They frequently will sound superior to the same recording being streamed, if for no other reason it eliminates the vagaries of Internet flow

You mean information is lost on the airwaves?