It's a good idea to start at the beginning. Opus 5 is Carl Nielsen's first string quartet. There has been some discussion on the list about his string quartets and the recordings that have been issued. My general opinion was that I liked every recording I had. Andrew Carlan keeps mentioning Nielsen, so I thought I'd provide a more detailed comparison of recorded versions of the string quartets. For opus 5, I have the Danish String quartet on Kontrapunkt, Vertavo on Simax, and Kontra on BIS. Opus 5 is an excellent quartet; it has highly lyrical passages and some menacing power-charged passages. In an excellent performance, the artists must well highlight these two extreme poles. Also, this is a "rich" quartet which needs no additional rich acoustic from the recording engineers. After extensive listening to the three versions of opus 5, it's "thumbs up" for the Danish and Vertavo, "thumbs down" for the Kontra. The Danish String Quartet fully provides the menace and danger of the quartet - those signals just kept hitting me very effectively. Also, the lyrical passages are well handled as well. The sound on Kontrapunkt is perfect - dry to the bone. The Vertavo String Quartet also does a splendid job. They can be very fast, but there is no loss of excitement. Also, their version of the 2nd movement is easily the best of the three recordings. Good sound - not dry, not rich. The Kontra was a different story. First, the acoustic is way too rich. It hides details and makes the work sound like a Tchaikovsky piece. The performances are not special either. There's no menace, no sense of impending doom, just a run-through until coffee break time. Lyrical passages are handled better, but still nothing note-worthy. Overall, top billing goes to the Danish String Quartet. Their performance is at least as good as the Vertavo, and the sound is superb for the music. I might find the Kontra doing a better job with the other quartets, but I'm skeptical. In future postings, I'll review the recordings of Nielsen's other string quartets. I can't do this all at once; I'm a busy man. You might wonder how I can do this at all, since I've mentioned that my cd storage method stands for "chaos." I'm in the process of changing all that and going to an alphabetical system. Why I started with the letter "N" only Mother Nature knows. But, in this era where individual responsibility is not in vogue, I won't consider myself responsible. I'll blame Andrew who I assume has every Nielsen string quartet recording ever made. Don Satz [log in to unmask]