The following information is taken from sources from 1943. Recordings make after this date by the above mentioned performer(s) is not included. This discography may not be complete as a result. I have left the price of recordings/albums (in US currency) as they were priced during 1943 for research purposes.

B. H. Haggin recently quoted Carl Van VecKten as saying that precision is a quality so rare as to be easily mistaken for genius. It is an essential element in any projection of music, whether vocal or instrumental. It is most important of all in any sort of ensemble work. It is, if taken in its true and broadest sense, the one essential ingredient of good chamber-music performance. And it is the quality that singles out the Budapest String Quartet as unique among the many good string ensembles of the day. These four men coalesce into a unit marvelous in accuracy‚ accuracy of attack, pitch, volume, and tempo. It would be difficult to name one single record more admirable in performance than the Budapest String Quartet’s old Victor record of Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade (V-4271). This is not merely a question of individual excellence on the part of one performer or another‚ nothing makes a poorer quartet than one or two star players and the balance mediocre. It is a matter of unity of purpose, coincidence of understanding, and matched ability to carry intention into action.
Unfortunately, Victor has seen fit to cut out a number of superb recordings by the Budapest String Quartet, recordings that already are sorely missed. Columbia, however, adding this ensemble to its list, has assured all who appreciate high excellence in quartet playing that they will continue to have Budapest records made by the most advanced modern methods. No chamber-music enthusiast need be told about this astonishing quartet. Those honest music-lovers who continue to regard quartet-playing as an odd, dull, or even objectionable mewing and scraping of strings could hardly fend a better way of enlarging the field of their own musical enjoyment than by listening with open ears and an open mind to, say, the Budapest String Quartet’s shimmering and exquisite projection of Mozart’s Quartet No 15, D minor, K.421, or Ravel’s Quartet, F major. Here are recordings that may honestly and unsentimentally be called treasures. Music-lovers in general, and record-buyers in particular, have every reason to be grateful to Messrs. Josef Roismann, Alexander Schneider, Boris Kroyt, and Mischa Schneider for continuing to prove, by imagination and precision of the brightest sort, that our own era can produce‚and enjoy‚ quartet-playing of unshakable excellence.

Information from Gramophone Supplement; 1944

BARTOK

Quartet No. 2, A minor, Opus 17. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set VM-320; price complete with album $4.72.

BEETHOVEN

• Quartet No. 1, F major, Opus 18. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set CM-444; price complete with album $4.72.
• Quartet No. 9, C major (“Rasoumovsky No. 3″), Opus 59, No. 3. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set CM-510; price complete with album $4.72.
• Quartet No. 10, E flat major (“Harp”), Opus 74. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set VM-467; price complete with album $4.72.
• Quartet No 11, F minor, Opus 95. Three 12″ records (6 sides) in Set CM-51; price complete with album $3.67.
• Quartet No. 13, B flat major, Opus 130. Fipe 12″ records (10 sides) in Set VM-157; price complete with album $5.77.
• Quartet No. 14, C sharp minor, Opus 131. Five 12″ records (10 sides) in Set CM-429; price complete with album $5.77.
• Quartet No. 16, F major, Opus 135 Three 12″ records (6 sides) in Set CM-489; price complete with album $3.67.

BRAHMS

• Quintet (with Alfred Hohday, 2nd viola) No. 1. F major, Opus 88. Three 12″ records (6 sides) in Set VM-466; price complete with album $3.67.
• Quintet (with Hans Mahlke, 2nd viola) No. 2, G major, Opus 111. Three 12″ records (6 sides) in Set VM-184; price complete with album $3.67.
• Sextet (with Alfred Hohday, 2nd viola, and Anthony Pini, 2nd cello) No. 2, G major, Opus 36. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set VM-371; price complete with album $4.72.

DEBUSSY

Quartet, G minor. Opus 10. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set CM-467; price complete with album $4.72.

DVORAK

• Quartet No. 6, F major (“American”), Opus 96. Three 12″ records (6 sides) in Set VM-681; price complete with album $3.67.
• Sextet (with Watson Forbes, 2nd viola, and John Moore, 2nd cello) No. 1, A major. Opus 48. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set VM-66111; price complete with album $4.72.

MOZART

• Quartet No. 15. D minor, K.421. Three 12″ records (6 sides) in Set CM-462; price complete with album $3.67.
• Quintet (with Milton Kafims, 2nd viola), G minor, K.516. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set CM-526; price complete with album $4.72.
• Quintet (with Benny Goodman, clarinet), K.581. Three 10″ records and one 12″ record (8 sides) in Set VM-452; price complete with album $3.93.

RAVEL

• Quartet, F major. Four 12″ records (8 sides) in Set CM-425; price complete with album $4.72.
• SCHUBERT
• Quintet (with B. Heifetz, 2nd cello) C major. Opus 163. Six 12″ records (12 sides) in Set CM-497; price complete with album $6.82.

WOLF

Italian Serenade, G major. 10″ record No. V-4271; price 79c.

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