This is the first set to accommodate all six Op. 18 Quartets on two Compact Discs. Both of the rival CD accounts by the Alban Berg (EMI) and the Melos Quartet of Stuttgart (DG) run to three. Needless to say, this in itself would not be enough to prediscope me in their favour, but artistically the Talich have a directness and simplicity that command admiration. Not that they are in all respects ideal but they are eminently sane interpreters, concerned with matter first and with manner second. Too many performers nowadays are intent on the presentation of the argument rather than its substance, a natural enough phenomenon when they are repeatedly playing the same repertoire on tour.
The Talich offer dedicated performances, stripped of glamour and unconcerned with surface beauty and totally uninterested in impressing us with their own prowess; they are unfailingly intelligent and free from idiosyncracy. In fact, in some places I found them just a shade prosaic. I have heard the opening measures of the first movement of the C minor Quartet given with more drama and fire and—I might add—sense of momentum. (The Alban Berg make much more of this but theirs is generally a more virtuosic and 'public' performance and they rush the scherzo.) Throughout the piece the Talich take their time except in the finale. Elsewhere, in the A major and the B flat Quartets, which are also new to the UK catalogue, they find the tempo giusto and hold one in the palm of their hand. The first movement of the A major is imaginative and sparkles with all the freshness of an early spring morning. Elsewhere, however, they are what I am tempted to describe as dour. The conversation-like exchanges of the first movement could do with more wit and an altogether lighter touch. This is cautious rather than gracious discourse. In the opening movement of the F major Quartet, they are a bit wanting in urgency—indeed, they presumably feel this themselves as they press ahead at bar 30. Incidentally, the exposition repeat is omitted here but it is observed in all the other quartets, save for the sixth, in B flat.
I see that in reviewing their accounts of the first two quartets when they appeared five years ago, I said that ''they balance a feeling for architecture with sensitivity to detail'', a verdict which with some modification, still stands and can do so for the whole set. Five years ago the Gabrieli Quartet, then the Talich's only immediate LP rival in that coupling (and still only available on LP), operated, I thought, ''at a higher emotional temperature in the slow movement'', and even listening to it in total isolation, the Talich strike me as less penetrating than I would expect. They seem slower here than the Vegh (Auvidis/Pinnacle—LP only), though in fact the difference in the actual tempo is minimal. But the Vegh create a greater illusion of movement: the accents of the chordal accompaniment at the beginning are lighter and Vegh himself floats the melodic line in a most imaginative way. However, let me not dwell on the occasional moments of prose; for there is no want of poetry in the Talich set—as I have said in the A major and B flat—and as music making it is infinitely more natural than their two CD rivals, marvellous though their playing is.
The Calliope recording is very clean and present, though a trifle dry. It does not have the tonal bloom of the Alban Berg—which is made in a warmer acoustic—nor the clarity and presence of the Melos. The latter I find a little overpowering and overbright. In the first two quartets CD also seems to correct to some extent the bottom-heavy quality I remember from the LP. Recommended—even if they are not so inspired as in their performances later on in the cycle.'