Hans Keller, that ardent opponent of the gramophone record did admit that recordings have one advantage L the case of chamber music: they bring one into the performance in such a way that one can almost imagine oneself participating. With period string instruments that advantage is heightened. An 'original' string quartet can be a terrible disappointment in even a moderate-size concert hall—unless you happen to be right at the front. In a good recording (and these certainly are) the tone is richer, more powerful and seemingly capable of greater variety—the sound ceases to be spatially and psychologically a thing apart.
The Smithson Quartet well deserve such attentive recording, for their performances are full of vitality and subtlety. Beginning with Op. 18 No. 1 I was immediately struck by the alertness, the clear-cut edges (how right their sforzandos sound!) and the attention to expressive detail coupled with a strong sense of form as a living process. Nowhere in this set did I feel that the historical has taken precedence over the musical: where Beethoven's metronome markings seem impossibly fast the Smithson don't force the issue, and even if the opening Allegro con brio of No. 6 isn't semi-breve = 80, it has plenty of drive. It certainly isn't what a modern listener would understand as con brio, however, and here I think the main problem will lie for most listeners. Even putting aside the romantic notion of Beethoven storming heaven with his boots on, and remembering that the Op. 18 set was written for the same audience that Haydn intended his Op. 77, there are moments in some of these quartets where something new and startling seems to be happening where as one writer put it, ''Napoleon bursts into the drawing-room''—the pre-recap fortissimo of No. 3's first movement is a good example. Such moments often seem to me to suffer.
It's very refreshing to hear the tremendous Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato of Quartet No. I not taken at the customary portentous plod, but I do miss the power of modern strings at its climaxes. The gain in lightness and humour is also refreshing, and in places the Smithson bring valuable new perspectives: the gentle touch in the second group of No. 3's Andante con moto makes one realize that what often strikes one as 'heaviness' in Beethoven's humour is at least partly attributable to our instruments and playing styles. Elsewhere though I begin to wonder if Charles Rosen wasn't right to suggest that the development of composers' ideas can stimulate developments in instrument making—that in Beethoven's case it was new demands that brought new kinds of instruments into existence. Original-instrument partisans tend to imply that only the reverse is true. Despite my enthusiasm for the experiments of Roger Norrington and Frans Bruggen in Beethoven's orchestral music, I have to say that I'm less convinced that the classical quartet repertoire needs this kind of attention. The Smithson's Op. 18 really should be heard, but whether you'll want to live with it is another matter.'