The long-disbanded LaSalle Quartet are nowadays celebrated primarily for their compelling recorded interpretations of twentieth-century music and these performances are notably attentive to the forward-looking elements in ‘late’ Beethoven, the minute gradations in dynamics (often within a single bar), the daring gestures (particularly in the Grosse Fuge) and the barely repressed Angst that tears at the outer movements of Op. 132. Above all, the LaSalle refuse to pussyfoot around the music; theirs is an urgent, life-affirming approach which is beautifully exemplified in Op. 132’s Heiliger Dankgesang slow movement and the shift from a prayer-like Molto adagio to the ecstatic release of a deliriously trilling Andante (at 3'04'' into track 3 on the third disc). Here as elsewhere, shifts from forte to piano and back again are faithfully realized and mobility is the keyword (the LaSalle’s reading lasts 14'57'' in comparison with Quartetto Italiano’s 19'33'').
The E flat Quartet opens to forceful, hefty chords and the second movement’s heart-stopping transition to Adagio molto (at around 7'11'' into track 1 on the first disc) could hardly be more espressivo. The Scherzo’s Trio stamps and rails (at 4'53'' on track 3) and the finale – with its pertinent allusions to the Choral Symphony’s finale – emerges as rudely rumbustious. In Op. 131’s long central movement, the LaSalle bring the utmost poise to the Allegretto passage at bar 162 (from 7'02'' into track 8 on the first disc), marking the subsequent Adagio ma non troppo e semplice with gentle emphases so that the disruptive cello semiquavers thereafter tell with maximum impact. Perhaps the second movement could have crept in a little more gracefully (the Amadeus are quite magical at this point) but elsewhere abrupt contrasts work to the music’s advantage, especially in Op. 130’s first movement (second disc, track 1) where, at 5'04'' and 9'09'', quixotic shifts between fast (extrovert) and slow (ethereal) music are startlingly effective.
Like the Juilliard and Emerson Quartets, the LaSalle boldly protest the Grosse Fuge as Op. 130’s rightful finale (could it justifiably be otherwise?), relegating the more lightweight ‘replacement’ to fill-up status at the end of the disc (it was actually recorded four years later). The Quartet receives a superb performance, charming in the false security of the Presto and Alla danza tedesca, fiercely confrontational in the Grosse Fuge and with a strongly etched first movement (no repeat, unfortunately). Op. 135’s opening Allegretto is pensive but precise, its Scherzo unhurried yet inherently hectic (the central rumpus really kicks up the sand). The sublime Lento assai opens with some of the quietest playing on the set; indeed, my only real criticism of these discs is that the clear but occasionally overmodulated recordings do sometimes stint on pianos and pianissimos. They were made in the Beethovensaal, Hanover, between 1972 and 1977 and witnessed a change of cellist (Lee Fiser replacing Jack Kirstein), although all six performances bear the hallmarks of a superb quartet totally at one with some of the repertoire’s greatest music. I treasure it alongside such feted ‘late’ Beethoven classics as the Busch, Italian, Amadeus and Vegh Quartets and trust that in the future – as in the past – I shall return to it often.'