Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Worthy attempt but superceded now, 7 Nov 2008
I came to Bartok's music through these discs and I struggled with them for a good few years before trying to come at it from another angle, and then realising these guys just weren't getting the message across (in my humble opinion).
Bartok's quartets have a fearsome reputation, both for the player and for the listener, and yet somehow they have always had a public who are determined to try and make something of them. It is as though there is a myth of hyper-modernity that has kept them alive, when much 20th Century music of similar difficulty and calibre has been let go.
The first of Bartok's quartets is not that difficult to listen to and is self-evidently a masterpiece of amazing emotional power and subtlety. After that they get rapidly more difficult. It's hard not to hear in them influences from the visual arts, cubism and futurism, and much of the historical anxiety of the times. There are several passages when you would swear you can hear bombs dropping. If you don't know these pieces then you would have to hear them to know what I mean.
As for this particular recording? It was only when I started to pay attention to Bartok's famous orchestral works, Concerto for Orchestra and Strings, Percussion and Celeste (Bartok: The Orchestral Masterpieces), which whilst clearly being modern are so much more approachable, that I found myself asking how the Quartets, as I knew them from these discs, and the Orchestral works could be by the same composer? Clearly, Bartok had sublimated the folk influences into something far more abstract in the quartets, whereas they were left fairly outfront and intact for the orchestrals. But nonetheless, surely the flamboyance of spirit of the gypsy/central European heritage should still be apparent? But the Emerson's were presenting something very formal and academic.
Eventually I realised that it had to be the interpreters and I bought another set by the Takacs Bartók: The String Quartets. Sure enough, these were much less stilted, and whilst still being by no means easy listening made a lot more emotional sense, and certainly could be related to the composer of the Hungarian Sketches and so forth.
I give the discs 2 stars because they created a stir at the time and raised the public profile of the quartets. The Emerson's 'famously' toured the quartets, doing single sitting concerts of the whole set. Perhaps, as they toured them, they managed to penetrate closer to the essence of the pieces, to a degree that I am afraid is just not present in these recordings.
These quartets remain at the cutting edge of modernity, in that there is still huge scope for their interpretation, and no received tradition in how they 'should' be played. As such it is unlikely there will be an unequivocal 'best' recording for a long while yet. I am very happy with my Takacs recordings but there is a reviewer on the Takacs page who describes them as big-boned and recommends recordings by the Vegh quartet from 1972, Bartok - String Quartets Complete, supposedly from players who knew Bartok, and the Hungarian quartet Bartók: 6 String Quartets, which he feels are more intimate. If I was making my purchase today I would consider these recommendations.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
No prisoners BARTOK from the Emersons, 20 Oct 2009
Bela Bartok - 6 string quartets (composed: 1908-1938)
indespensable + iconic 20th C angular/modern classical music ; this is not mozart....)
well i can't agree with the other reviewer here concerning the Emersons playing and interpretaton of Bartok's essential quartet cycle. yes - they can play aggressively and perhaps without as much tonal colour or subtley as other quartets (the Keller Qrt or Takacs for instance) BUT Bartok's quartets are perhaps his most astringent/unmelodic and demanding works, + it was the Emerson's live versions i heard on bbc radio3 some 15 years ago (that as a then - mainly rock/metal+ dance fan) actually converted me to Bartok in the first place! it was the Emerson's tremendous projection and dark energy. i also enjoy the little reviewed versions by the Endellion Qrt also (on Virgin)- they have a more reflective take on this great cycle.
anyway - the Emersons (perhaps like Mravinsky with Shostakovich's symphonies or Gould's Bach for instance) might be an acquired taste for more "refined" ears but this 2 cd set suits me just fine. Gramophone and the Penguin guide also thought so in '98....
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