These are studio recordings, dating from 1985 and completing a series begun in the late 70s with the C-major quintet and pursued in the early 80s with the 15th quartet and the "Trout" quintet. The "Death and the Maiden" here is not to be confused with the later, live recording made by the ABQ and released in 1998 - which I haven't heard, but which received warm reviews.
One of the greatest string quartets of the 20th-century, the - 100% Austrian - Alban Berg Quartett remains famous for their unsurpassable renditions of the great Viennese masters. The ensemble notably put on record the supreme Beethoven cycle twice, once in studio, once in the Wiener Konzerthaus. Enjoy large excerpts of these milestone recordings, coupled with late masterpieces of Schubert (the Trout Quintet featuring Elisabeth Leonskaja, the quintet with two cellos featuring Heinrich Schiff…)
There were two Alban Berg Quartetts: the ABQ that recorded for Teldec in the '70s and the one that recorded for EMI in the '80s, '90s, and '00s. The first ABQ and the second ABQ shared two members first violinist Günter Pichler and cellist Valentin Erben and a common approach to chamber music more intellectual than emotional, more restrained than explosive, and more deep-down satisfying than superficially thrilling.
Chances are if you have heard of Austrian composer Egon Wellesz at all, it has been through his association with Arnold Schoenberg. Wellesz, the same age as Alban Berg, was one of Schoenberg's earliest students and wrote the first book-length biography of the composer in 1921, a study that both posterity and its subject regarded as something of a classic.