Given the daunting structure of the Seven Last Words—eight substantial slow movements plus a tiny concluding presto—you wouldn't expect it to be as popular as it evidently is; but then these are eight very fine slow movements, and even if the arrangements for string quartet were afterthoughts, the music adapts very effectively. In fact the confessional intimacy it acquires when played by four solo strings sometimes makes one wonder whether Haydn hadn't something along these lines in his mind in his original conception of the work.
The Kodaly (Naxos/Select) and Amadeus recordings present the string quartet version pretty much as it is, though neither emulate the Cherubini Quartet on EMI and observe exposition repeats. Both strike me as belonging to the good but not spectacular category. The Amadeus is a typically controlled, well thought out performance, tonally rich, well shaped yet with that equally typical archness in big expressive moments—it's the dressage one admires rather than the communication of feeling. They're more impressive in the Op. 64 set of quartets—altogether greater vitality here than in some of their later Haydn recordings—and yet even here they're some way short of the quick-wittedness of the Lindsay in their ASV version of No. 5 in the set.
In the Seven Last Words the Kodaly aren't quite so elegant or tidy, but the expression seems to come from deeper within the fabric of the music, and despite the musty recording I think they're preferable. And while they aren't going to displace the Cherubini or the Shostakovich (Olympia/Complete Record Co) versions as my current recommendations, at super-budget price they're worth considering. The fascinating unfinished Op. 103 makes a meaty coupling and the performance has its strengths, even if it doesn't quite match the Takacs (Decca) or the original-instrument Salomon Quartet (Hyperion) for freshness of insight.
The Juilliard Quartet can't really be compared with any of the above. For a start, what they present is a kind of conflation of the choral and string-quartet versions, including the sung introits, though with the quartet sometimes playing alone before or after exposition repeats (Haydn deleted the repeats for his choral version). Secondly, they've added an 'interlude'—nothing less than the magnificent F sharp major Largo from the Quartet Op. 76 No. 5—between ''Eli, Eli'' and ''I thirst''. As an idea the whole thing simply doesn't work. The quartet and the solo voices compete for centre stage, and while voice-instrument doubling is no problem in the chorus and orchestra version, here the two strands really are like oil and water. The playing and singing can be quite telling, but there are moments—for instance in the Op. 76 No. 5 Largo—where the reverential tone declines into a kind of languid piety, more than faintly reminiscent of suburban stained glass. Haydn's choral-orchestral and quartet scores both have their plusses, but there seems little point in mixing them.'