Beethoven: the Late String Quartets.(Sound Recording Review)

Emerson String Quartet (Deutsche Grammophon 474 341-2)

I have probably told this story before in these pages; if you have heard it before, or if you don't really care, please feel free to skip directly to the next paragraph, where I will get back to reviewing rather than reminiscing. At any rate, one of my most indelible musical memories was my first experience with sting quartet music. As an allegedly adult (mid-20s, married, two--and then three--kids) undergraduate student at BYU back ha the mid-'70s, I began to really get excited about classical music. I listened mostly to orchestral music, but one evening as I browsed through the sale bin at a local record store (Odyssey Records, RIP), I came across a boxed set of the complete Beethoven Late String Quartets by the Yale Quartet on Vanguard for something like $12 for what I seem to recall was a 4-LP set. Never having listened to a string quartet before, and having read that these were the pinnacle of the literature, I took the box home and started listening. I had never heard anything like this! I had a term paper to write that night, and I shall never forget playing that boxed ...