Your favourite Beethoven string quartet ?

[pastoralguy]

For me, the op. 132 in a minor. I played 2nd violin in a performance when I was a student. It took a deal of concentration to get through it!

I also love Lenny's recording of op. 131 with the Vienna Philharmonic which is a phenomenal performance. Ok, I'm not sure it's 'correct' but it's very overwhelming.

[ahinton]

In listening yesterday (coincidentally) to all the late quartets from Op 127, in the order in which Beethoven composed them, I was struck how each one managed to impact more strongly on me than its predecessor. I don't know of any similar experiences from the last words of any other composer.

That's really quite a listening ordeal! (by which I do not mean to imply anything negative - very much the reverse, indeed) but, whilst there are indeed characteristics that these last five quartets share with one another that they do less so with their predecessors, what amazes me is that, within this "late quartet period" that extended over a mere couple of years, he never "repeats" himself in any sense; the sheer variety as well as supreme quality of invention seems somehow inexhaustible and who knows where it might have taken him - and us - had he survived as long as that other great quartet composer, Shostakovich, still less the much longer lived quartet composer par excellence Elliott Carter!...

[Barbirollians]

In listening yesterday (coincidentally) to all the late quartets from Op 127, in the order in which Beethoven composed them, I was struck how each one managed to impact more strongly on me than its predecessor. I don't know of any similar experiences from the last words of any other composer.

That is what I feel about Beethoven's last five piano sonatas too - Op111 always has the biggest effect on me .

[EdgeleyRob]

Op 59 No 1 was the first I fell in love with,that glorious opening tune that seems to go on forever.
I used to play that bit over and over again.

Favourite nowadays is Op 131,it has everything,it's what C#Minor was made for.
I like to think that the story of Schubert hearing a private performance on his deathbed is true