Disappointment and confirmed delight are the responses elicited by these two new Haydn releases. The Takacs are, alas, uncharacteristically responsible for the disappointment. Or are they? On repeated listenings, it is very much the overresonant recording acoustic and what sounds like the relentless equalizing of parts which must be ultimately answerable for the fact that, despite its excitement, I should find this recording difficult to live with.
One's response to the Takacs' approach to the Op. 76 must be a matter of taste. Only when their ardent, highly-strung playing is glossed by the nature of the recording itself does more objective negative judgement become appropriate. In the first, G major work, for instance, the resonant acoustic gives a false, glaring gleam to the bright vigour of their contrapuntal playing; the second movement, juicy with vibrato, is made to sound over-homogeneous and shimmers, mirage-like, in a heady haze of harmony which becomes oppressive in comparison with the playing of either the Amadeus (a two-disc DG set CD 415 867-2GCM2, 6/87) or the Tatrai (Hungaroton/Conifer HCD12812/3-2, 5/87—also a two-disc set).
The Amadeus not only live in a more comfortable acoustic, but Brainin, unlike Takacs-Nagy, never drives when he can achieve momentum simply by shaping. Their perfection of scale in the second movement of the Op. 76 No. I is achieved precisely by knowing when to exhale as well as inhale: the Takacs are too reluctant to lighten their grip and release the inner rhythmic life of the writing. In this first quartet and, indeed in the Op. 76 as a whole, the Tatrai, like the Takacs, kindle the unique fire and high spirits of this set: they catch the breath less often than the Amadeus but, if anything, stir the blood more.
The Takacs offer a hornet's nest of activity at the start of No. 2, where the greater austerity of the Amadeus and Tatrai reveals more patiently the encyclopaedia of counterpoint which this quartet discloses. Their Emperor, too, is vividly alive; but the acoustic glues together their legato playing in the 'hymn' and variations, whereas both the more subtle pointing of the Amadeus and the clear air they breathe frees the internal as well as the external energies of the movement.
Back to the Second Quartet, the only one of the Op. 76 to be offered here by the Lindsay Quartet. Joan Chissell will be taking the Tatrai to her desert island: the Lindsay tempt me irresistibly. Of all the recordings mentioned, this, taken from last year's live Wigmore Hall recital, is by far the most natural; and, more important still, the performances vibrate with the second-by-second activity of shared responses unique to live performance. Ideas tumble out of the first movement: a full quota of repeats spurs the players on to constant regeneration of imagination and energy, just as the variations of the slow movement unfold a marvellous sense of each player's confiding in his audience and recreating each moment afresh.
The Lindsay's policy of focusing long and hard on one composer pays dividends in the sharp individuation of character between this quartet and their Opp. 50 and 20 No. 2. The Op. 50 is delicately explorative, concentrating its material tautly while barely touching the ground in its lightness of touch, the Op. 20 is rich in experiment with a sombre unity of purpose in its slow scena giving way to one of the most delightfully fugitive fugues on disc.'