Since there are currently 17 versions of this ever-popular coupling in the catalogue at present, while yet more discs have both works plus something else, one has to wonder if we need yet another and indeed, how ensembles and record companies still find it artistically and commercially wise to take this well-worn road when there is so much else in the quartet repertory. This said, the Kellers give us a strong, keenly-felt account of the music.
The Debussy has plenty of urgency and momentum in the outer movements and scherzo, and that is no bad thing, although personally I like a bit more rhythmic and tonal flexibility in the first movement: not all the colours and feelings in this music by the most expressively subtle of composers emerge. I would like to hear this youthful Hungarian ensemble again in this work when they have played it for a few more years and may have found rather more refinement of detail and space. However, they do offer a pleasing freshness, and accordingly, perhaps, a correspondingly greater poignancy, and the sadly tender slow movement works its magic as ever—though the celebrated 1965 performance by the Quartetto Italiano (at mid-price) goes deeper still. Furthermore, the Keller Quartet's playing is finely polished and the scherzo glistens with warmth as well as light.
Ravel's Quartet has the same good features and some textures are admirably judged, but again I have to say that other more experienced ensembles such as the Italians reveal still more of its delicate beauty, for example in the central section of the scherzo and, not surprisingly, the slow movement. Erato's recording has impact and depth, but (as so often these days) is close and lets us hear a few extraneous noises that sound like sniffs. Listen, if you can, to the first 30 seconds of the Ravel if you think this may worry you.'