Building A Chamber Music Collection in 1953 (The 'B' List)

New York Times critic Howard Taubman's 1953 "B" List of essential chamber works for record collectors is a much more eclectic selection that his "A" List, reflecting the scattershot availability of repertoire at the time.

[stefanehrenkreutz]

"Paganini" = The Paganini String Quartet I transmogrified in part into the Stanley Quartet, for many years the resident string quartet at the University of Michigan. The latter gave free concerts several times a year in Ann Arbor. I remember a memorable on a very hot summer evening where the Stanley Quetet played the Bartok 4th and the Beethoven C# minor. Both ensembles had Belgian origins. There is a recording of the Paganini Quartet with Arthur Rubinstein playing the Brahms f minor Quintet, I believe.

[jonathanfenwick]

Surprising list for sure! I was hoping at least the 1950 Juilliard Bartok quartets would make the cut

[robertdandre]

your review of 1953 is rather interesting. I have often found in cheap bookstores books dealing with music or composers, books dating from the 50s, 40s, 30s, and already one could find there a ' 'discography' dating from those times....recently a book on Maurice Ravel that I got hold of and dating from 1935 formulated a rather complete discography of this composers for that period.

[duncanjams]

Only two works by Dvorak between the A and B lists! And the American quartet isn't one of them! I was intrigued to know who "Chiqi" was/were and found the Chiqi Quintet have a Wiki page: they were Italian and the Dvorak quintet they recorded was the No 2. They also have a Naxos historical CD available!