The Brodsky Quartet consists of English instrumentalists hiding under the name of the Russian violinist Adolf Brodsky, the dedicatee of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and once principal of the Manchester College of Music, now the Royal Northern College of Music where this quartet studied. Except that they take the slow movement too slowly they give a praiseworthy account of the Beethoven. Their technique allows them to play the scherzo at a tremendous speed, but they also show sensitivity—to name but one instance, in Var. 2 of the finale where the violist's rubato is nicely judged. The performance would be even more enjoyable if loud chords did not sound so harsh. The acoustics of the recording venue may be to blame but the imminent microphone probably added to the trouble.
This quality makes it difficult to decide which version of the Schubert is the better. The Hagen Quartet on DG play loud chords in an exciting yet agreeable way, and sometimes there is a clarity one misses on the Brodsky disc; for instance the quick repeated semiquavers that accompany the first tune in the Schubert are much more clearly defined. But I do not warm to the bulges in some of the Hagen Quartet's chords, and much prefer the smoother lyricism on the Brodsky version. Also the Broadsky players take the finale of the Schubert a bit too fast so that some of the first-violin part sounds almost as though it had been written for Paganini. In spite of what I have written, I enjoyed the Broadsky's playing, and look forward to hearing them again.'