“We worshipped the printed page,” said Sasha (Alexander) Schneider, long-term second violinist with the Budapest Quartet. “There was never a quartet that paid so much attention to every millionth of a point,” he continued. “If we weren’t sure whether it was a dot or a piece of dirt, we played the dot.” True to form, the dots are all here, though if there is any ‘dirt’ on offer, I certainly didn’t hear it. These are among the most fastidious Beethoven quartet recordings available, a virtual Urtext in sound, painstakingly realized. The Schneider quotation, by the way, is taken from Nat Brandt’s Con Brio (published in 1993) which Sony make use of in the context of Harris Goldsmith’s excellent annotation.
Sony’s presentation is sumptuous, with copious photos, contemporary disc sleeves in reproduction and sturdy card casing. The transfers are object-lessons in how to minimize surface noise without impinging on – or in any way distorting – the instrumental image. Most tracks sound as if they were taken from tape originals (they are in fact refurbishments of 78s, or 78rpm metal masters); the acoustic is fairly dry, the instruments are placed quite close to the microphone and the blending of voices is always respectful of Beethoven’s part-writing. Listen, for example, to the sinewy passage in Op. 132’s Allegro ma non tanto (4'18'') where second violin and viola are granted equal voicing, and I challenge you to find a modern recording that delivers a truer sound picture.
Generally speaking, all the performances bear out Sasha Schneider’s claims, although there is at least one crucial passage – at 9'00'' into the slow movement of Op. 18 No. 1, where a sudden fortissimo run of semiquavers quickly dips to piano – that finds the players levelling off Beethoven’s prescribed dynamics. Elsewhere, however, there is much to savour, not least the finely tensed opening bars of Op. 127’s Adagio, the warmly entwining exchanges in Op. 131’s opening movement, the jaunty banter that dominates the first movement of Op. 18 No. 5 (one of two recordings included where Schneider is replaced by Edgar Ortenberg), the Mendelssohnian lightness of Op. 95’s fourth movement coda and that marvellous passage 3'40'' into the first movement of No. 18 No. 4 where the argument suddenly quietens to a mysterious pianissimo. True, the closing Allegro molto of Op. 59 No. 3 has nothing of the Emerson Quartet’s maniacal panache (7/97), but a compensating propriety may well deliver longer-term dividends.
There can be little doubt that the Budapest Quartet was in prime technical condition in the 1940s, although comparisons with the live Bridge set that I reviewed in June (performances of the ‘late’ quartets recorded in Washington’s Library of Congress, mostly during the same period) suggest that playing to an audience inspired the Quartet to extra spontaneity. The first movement of Op. 135 is as good a place as any to make comparisons: Sony’s recording is, technically speaking, definitely the better of the two, and yet it is the live performance that delivers the more vivid shading and a wider inflexional range. In fact, were I to voice just one criticism of these studio recordings, it would be that, listened to en bloc (never a terribly good idea), they emerge as rather lacking in colour. Certain later Beethoven sessions by the same (or similar) ensemble dating from the 1950s and 1960 are marginally more satisfying in terms of nuance and flexibility. Still, these fine recordings provide a worthy memento of a great ensemble at the height of its executive powers, and the sonorous C major Quintet, Op. 29 (one of the finest performances in the set) makes for a musically worthwhile bonus.'