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I was delighted (and frankly somewhat amazed) to discover that this digital release of all the Schneider Quartet's Haydn recordings has appeared at last. For those who are not familiar with these recordings, I hardly know where to begin: Suffice it to say that Alexander Schneider, the first violinist of this group, was a veteran of the Budapest String Quartet, the Casals Festival, etc. when he started his own string quartet in the early 1950s. With three other musicians of equal stature, he set out to champion the music of Joseph Haydn (justly called "the father of the string quartet"), and on tour, the Schneider Quartet presented all of Haydn's quartets to the public for what may have been the first time ever.Around 1952, they started recording the pieces for the Haydn Society record label, but ultimately money for the project ran out before each one of the quartets could be recorded. So this is not a truly "complete" set, if you care about that. Which, in this case, you shouldn't.In the view of aficionados -- of which I am unabashedly one -- this pioneering effort remains the cycle that best captures the full humor and emotional range of Haydn. These are performances that will at times make you laugh, and other times bring you to tears.I was lucky enough to be brought up with many of these performances thanks to LPs (ever so loved and consequently well-worn) purchased by my parents, and I can't help but find most others to be a pale shadow. The musical wit and virtuosity of these recordings has made them a legend among record collectors and musicians alike.The box set has a nice reproduction of one of the original LP covers, plus definitive notes putting the recordings in historical context by Tully Potter, the noted authority on historical chamber music recordings (further, the original notes that were supplied with the LPs themselves regarding the music itself are downloadable from the Music and Arts website, if you wish them). For many years, the master tapes were feared lost, but they were eventually obtained by Music and Arts, and about 80 percent of this box set comes from the master tapes, and the additional 20 percent from carefully transferred LP copies.These are mono recordings from the early 1950s, so you would not buy them if recorded sound is your main criterion. But, because of the talent and sensitivity of the musicians, the balance between the four players is impeccable, which is what really counts here. As an aside, though Schneider could be considered the "star" player here, he never overwhelms the others -- such a contrast to the chamber music recordings made by Jascha Heifetz (train wrecks, albeit glorious ones).If you primarily listen through headphones and the idea of monaural recordings bothers you, you can sample this set via a well-known streaming audio website (a competitor to Amazon, so I won't name it here).