DESCRIPTION:
Hindemith: String Quartet, Op. 32 (1923)
The Guilet String Quartet:
Daniel Guilet, violin I
Jac Gorodetzky, violin II
Frank Brieff, viola
Lucien Laporte, cello

Recorded c. 1947 for the Concert Hall Society, and first issued by them as a limited edition set of three 78-rpm records, Series B, Album 2. About 1950 the recording was transferred to LP and reissued as Concert Hall CHS-1086, a ten-inch disc, which is my source.

Hindemith's Quartet, Op. 32, is in four movements:

1. Lebhafte Halbe
2. Sehr langsam, aber immer fliessend (at 5:50)
3. Kleiner Marsch: Vivace, sempre crescendo (at 13:15)
4. Passacaglia (at 15:08)

The labels call this work "Quartet No. 4," and that brings up the issue of the numbering of Hindemith's quartets, which is a very confusing issue indeed! During his lifetime he published six: Op. 10, Op. 16, Op. 22, Op. 32, and two in E-Flat, one in 1943 and one in 1945 - Hindemith stopped using opus numbers after Opus 50. During the 1990s, however, an early Quartet, Op. 2, was published and added to the canon; this - unfortunately - became Quartet No. 1, and the numbers of all the succeding quartets were bumped ahead by one! Hence, the Op. 32 is now known as "No. 5" where it previously was known as "No. 4"; worse still, the 1943 E-Flat is now "No. 6" - while formerly the 1945 quartet was known as "No. 6 in E-Flat"! What I wonder is, why couldn't the Op. 2 quartet have been labelled "No. 0" as with Bruckner's early D minor symphony?