Faultless intonation, rhythmical control, precise ensemble and matching of tone and style are obviously vital ingredients of fine quartet playing, and nowhere more so than in the Third, Fourth and Fifth Quartets of Bartok. It is in these virtuoso masterpieces that the Alban Berg Quartet excel, in the precision of timbral effect as much as in the discipline of the headlong fast movements.
The sheer weight of tone they bring to, for instance, the opening Allegro of the Fifth Quartet, is something not even the Tokyo Quartet (DG) can match.
But in the First Quartet it is a rather different story. The molto vibrato portamento on the very first motif is already questionable—the Tokyo leader does the same, only more tastefully, and the Takacs (Hungaroton) and Lindsay (ASV) versions achieve a more inward molto espressivo by avoiding such souping-up altogether. Later on the whole point of the disembodied violin line above appassionato middle parts is surely missed by the Alben Berg, and the pp possible passage afterwards fails to catch the ear. The second and third movements are finely done, but the doubts raised in the opening Lento resurface from time to time in the later quartets. That is to say, the other ensembles listed above generally find a more desolate, haunted quality in the slow movements, and even in the fast ones, where the alban Berg are in their element, there is not always the turbulence conveyed by the Lindsay (at the expense of a certain brittleness in the execution) or the idiomatic flavour of the Takacs. The Sixth Quartet is made to sound more like a hangover from the Fifth than a genuinely new departure—piano dynamics frequently seem too 'present', and the unceremonious lead-in to the first movement's second subject is particularly disappointing.
I would not want these reservations to over-shadow my initial point—that there is a virtuosity in the 'middle' quartets which is virtually without peer. But if I could keep only one of these sets it would certainly be the Tokyo Quartet. Their leader's rapid vibrato is rather cloying, but in general they manage to combine most of the technical and expressive strengths of their rivals. If I were lucky enough to own all four, the Lindsay and the Takacs versions would certainly come off the shelves from time to time. The Alban Berg would do so more often if the EMI recording were exceptional (it is far superior to ASV's for the Lindsay or Hungaroton's for the Takacs, but lacks the bloom of the Tokyo set) and if there were not some rather disturbing oversights. We hear a bizarre unflattened leading-note in the viola theme of the fourth movement of No. 4, the leader reverses a rhythm in the third movement of No. 6 (bar 142). The two-bar rest in the finale of No. 5 (bar 153-4) is cut in half and, perhaps most surprising of all, the very first note of No. 4 is shortened by three-quarters. In music of this complexity human error is almost bound to be present and it rarely calls for comment; but these four instances seem to me inexcusable.'