The attractive new record is the product of the little festival run by Salvatore Accardo every spring in Naples. Here he and three of his younger colleagues tackle two of the most approachable works in the repertory with the dedication and ease of manner you expect to find among friends in the home but such amateurs would be unlikely to play with the technical skill and refinement evinced here by this well-matched quartet.
Their performance of the Verdi, which is so engaging that it makes one regret the composer didn't write more for the quartet medium, is well up to the competition of the Alberni, whose version now appears on CD (the Vermeer for Teldec/ ASV is ruled out by the leader's sniffing). It matches exactness of execution with sensitivity of feeling, no hint of untoward brashness evident. Accardo may be primus inter pares but the other strings, especially the cellist, are quite his equal. Whether you choose this performance or the British one will depend entirely on the couplings. The CRD obviously has the more appropriate companions, but you may feel that the Borodin work makes a more substantial partner to the Verdi.
Of course you may already have the prize-winning Borodin Quartet's EMI version of both their eponymous hero's quartets, which may incline you to the Alberni. Newcomers, who only want the more famous of Borodin pieces, need not feel that they are getting second-best. Close comparisons showed Accardo and friends quite able to hold their own. Their reading is somewhat more fastidious, less broad than that of the Russians, but never wanting in depth of tone and feeling. They are not, however, quite so gratefully recorded. The sound on the new disc is somewhat confined, though not distressingly so, and it reproduces easily. I greatly enjoyed these intimate performances.'