A journey that begins among the dank mists of late romanticism and ends in a mood of troubled calm, harbouring—midway—some of this century's most terse and belligerent music. Bartok's Third and Fourth Quartets are masterpieces of concision, crafted with a sure sense of symmetry yet charged with a steely passion. Their demands are exacting, their tone uncompromising—more so, in fact than the versicoloured Fifth Quartet, where every movement, even sub-section therein, is precisely timed. ''Twenty-seven minutes, thirty-nine seconds'' is the Fifth Quartet's prescribed duration (there are no less than 16 timed sub-sections in the finale alone), a sprightly alternative to the New Budapest Quartet's generous 32'37''. Should that matter? We know that Bartok himself was wont to bend the rules (and we have his recordings to prove it), but that was in music he played himself and could subtly 're-invent' for each performance. The six quartets are more meticulously tooled, their four-part textures timed and coloured with an ear for even the most minute effect. And when it comes to Bartok's sound-world, with its slithery sul ponticellos and tactile pizzicatos, the New Budapesters have us reaching for our backscratchers. No, the trouble isn't with sonority, but with a tendency to blunt the music's sharper contours.
The First Quartet's agitatos are not so much ignored as under-interpreted, while Bartok's double fortes seem reluctant to punch. Again, in the Second Quartet, the second movement would have benefited from greater thrust, although its muted, featherlight prestissimo section is very effective and the eerie sotto voce writing in the last movement, powerfully atmospheric. The Third Quartet goes fairly well, but after an assertive start, the Second Part's Allegro suffers a slight drop in tension (0'23'') and the Allegro molto coda hasn't the cathartic impact that the Veghs or Juilliards (CBS, 3/70, 4/70 and 5/70—nla) achieve. Much the same applies to the Fourth, where the Allegro molto's lacerating sforzandos go for little, although the Allegretto pizzicato has more tonal body than on most rival recordings. The Fifth Quartet finds us edging nearer 'late' Bartok (try 4'14'' into the Adagio molto for unmistakable premonitions of the Third Piano Concerto), yet the first movement raises some strenuous alarms—too strenuous, alas, for the New Budapesters, who momentarily lose focus at around bar 110 (3'50'' into track 7, disc two). The Alla bulgarese scherzo is tame, but the two slow movements (the one ingeniously mirroring the other) sound suitably nocturnal. The heart-rending Sixth Quartet is performed with far greater confidence, yet why play down those humorous glissandos at bar 58 in the Marcia (2'40'')? Compare the Veghs at this point, who can't fail to raise a smile.
Production values are high throughout, with superb sound, and excellent documentation by Robert Matthew-Walker. But heard next to the resilient, Gramophone Award-winning Emersons and, more particularly, the wildly spontaneous Veghs, the New Budapest Quartet sound rather too cautious. Although sympathetic to the cause, they fail to clinch the tougher moments—a challenge that their best rivals rise to, and none more so than the Juilliard Quartet, thrice recorded and still not available on CD.'