These two quartets have often been coupled on record, and indeed they make a good complement to each other. The new version by the gifted young Emerson Quartet is admirable, though it does have some formidable rivals with which to contend. The Talich version on Calliope/Harmonia Mundi is immediately attractive, and also, as so often with this group, there are musical perceptions which grow on one the more one hears the performances. Their musical insight is particularly acute in Tchaikovsky's quartet, and they play the famous Andante cantabile not only as if it were entirely fresh but with some phrasing and emphases that are original yet wholly true to the music. The Gabrieli Quartet (who share the Decca disc with the Borodin Quartet) are simple here, as indeed good interpreters should be, but also a little plain; the Emerson are more tender and more inward. The Gabrieli are, on the other hand, livelier with the Scherzo, though again it is the Talich who find a livelier kick to the rhythm and a firmer decisiveness. They are also excellent in making musical sense of the syncopated opening of the whole work, and its textural niceties; the Gabrieli are firmer than the Emerson here, with subtler shades of meaning.
In Borodin's quartet, the Gabrieli give place to the work's namesake players; and they are completely at home with this warm, lyrical, affecting music. The Talich are also very sympathetic; the Emerson play nicely and phrase elegantly, but do not have quite the instinct. They are also a little regular in a Scherzo that needs a quick and mobile sense of phrasing, as is shown by the Borodin players. The beautiful Nocturne is clearly relished by all three groups: the Talich recording is not so neatly defined as the others, but the playing is musical and true.
Recommendations must be affected by the hefty bonus on the Borodin/Gabrieli disc of Shostakovich's Eighth Quartet (played by the Borodin). That record provides well over 75 minutes of music. It is odd to put together two Russian performances dating from 1962 and an English one from 1976, and quality should not yield to quantity; but this does make a very attractive record of performances that are in some ways the best available (of Borodin's work, at any rate). No one should be disappointed by it.'