With this latest volume of the Lindsay Quartet's Haydn comes a renewed encounter with the circle of response generated by these live performances from London's ''Genius of Haydn'' festival last year. The strong, immediate opening chords of the D major Quartet radiate enough warmth to justify the nickname of the Op. 20 series, the ''Sun'' Quartets; the rough energy of the Emperor's outer movements retain all the spontaneity and 'blemishes' of live human activity which is lacking in more polished, edited studio recordings.
The programming, too, allows the listener to move with the audience through the shifting energy levels of the concert itself. For the D major Quartet, the Lindsay are in teasing, wooing mood, with the second movement variations played as featly-footed country dances, and the Hungarian-style Minuet bright with flinty offbeats.
The Op. 50 F sharp minor is, by contrast, an austere, angular reading. When the newly economic motifs settle down for a second or two of legato melody, the moment is barely indulged: vibrato is sparingly used, and the minor-key shadow of the Andante is stark in its outlining of the outer parts.
For the Emperor there is more of the country than the court. The Lindsay's robust, lurching dance in the first movement may be too mudspattered an excursion for some listeners: the first violin's high register scythes its way mercilessly through the line as if to outdo, in anticipation, the serrated edge of the cello in the Presto finale. The Hymn itself is unashamedly short of Viennese airs and graces, with some less than instinctive rubato. Within the scale of things, though, it makes for a live and unselfconscious still point at the climax of a challenging programme.'