Prokofiev's wider popularity has never extended to his string quartets, though the second has maintained a foothold in the catalogue. They last appeared coupled together on a Philips LP played by the Novak Quartet, though that did not remain available for long, either in its original form or as a mid-pricc reissue. The Second Quartet itself has fared better on LP (the Quartetto Italiano on Columbia, the Carmirelli Quartet on Decca, and the Prague on Supraphon all nla), though none has ever matched, let alone surpassed, the deleted legendary premiere mono recording by the Hollywood Quartet on Capitol. The comparison listed above is the Prague Quartet's second recording. Made in 1977 for Denon, it is totally unsatisfactory. The performance is unimaginative, wanting in dynamic range and bite, and in the slow movement one longs for the poetry this wonderful score calls for. I am happy to say that the American Quartet produce an excellent performance, which at times even matches the abandon and attack of the Hollywood.
The Sccond Quartet is by far the better-known of the two and comes from the war years when Prokofiev was evacuated to the Caucasus, where like Taneyev before him, he made a study of the musical folklore of Kabarda. Although the material is folk-derived, it is completely absorbed into Prokofiev's own melodic blood-stream. The second movement quotes a Kabardinian love song of great lyrical beauty, and at one point in the slow movement the accompaniment imitates the Caucasian stringed instrument, the kamancha. It is a work of real quality which has the astringent flavouring and poetic flair that characterize Prokofiev at his best. The recording is very good well-balanced with good presence and a warm but not over-reverberant acoustic. There is one small blemish: the aural image recedes briefly on track 4 at 5'50''.
The First Quartet, written at the behest of the Library of Congress in 1930, is not so immediately appealing but it, too, is a work of substance. It reccives a far more persuasive performancc from the American Quartet than any earlier account I have heard. They communicate conviction and belief in this music, and at last I understand why the piece has such strong admirers (Miaskovsky was strong in his praises of the last movement which Prokofiev subsequently scored for fuli strings, and which Rozhdestvensky recorded in the early 1970s). I have not encountered the American Quartet on disc before but hope to do so again. They are an excellent group which have bcen in existence some 15 years. Strongly recommended.'