Bartok : String Quartets Nos 1 - 6 [Complete] - Apex

I first encountered the violinist Andras Keller when I acquired the superb Kurtág - Kafka-Fragmente, which shows the terrific precision and vividness of his playing to optimum advantage. When I then learned that he led a quartet with whom he had recorded the iconically difficulty Bartóks I had the mental tussle of deciding whether my collection needed an alternate copy to my, considered by many as definitive, Takacs version, Bartók: The String Quartets (2 CDs). My first efforts at getting to grips with these works had been with the Emerson set, but after finally admitting defeat I defected to the Takacs', finding them superior in so many ways. Bartók's quartets are not like anyone else's, and not even very much like any of his other music. They tend to be constructed as juxtapositions of heterogeneous blocks of tightly woven harmonic and contrapuntal texture, with only emergent hints of thematic material to unify their structure. As such, it is the handling of the transitions between these blocks that gives huge scope for interpretation by players ambitious enough to attempt them, and that also determines how successful they will be in presenting the works as organic wholes or as crumbling patchworks. Anyway, at less then a third of the price of the Takacs, I plumped to give these a go and they have surpassed all expectations. I'm going to have to do some careful comparisons to decide whether they fully replace my Takacs versions. But I can already say that there is a clarity and vividness to these recordings that have bought these works to life for me in a way that I have not heard before.

The earliest quartet of 1907-09 is the most approachable, still having some tenuous links to the language of Romanticism. The first movement is slow and filled with great nobility but with terrible gravity. The second movement is similarly slow but now punctuated by attempts at sparks of passion that never quite ignite. Only in the third movement, after a brief, hesitant start is there a sudden assertion of frenzied agitation in which we can recognise the East European peasant dance like themes and scales, so characteristic of Bartók, but whose rhythms have been refracted into something dark and twisted.

Quartet No.2 was written in 1915-17 against the turmoil of the First World War. The opening movement is both mysterious and painful, filled with dejected introspection. A flickering flame amidst agitated shadows. One is reminded of the aching beauty of the Debussy string quartet, but now made more sharply chromatic, and thereby made about as sad as music gets. This is set against a second movement which is a fearsome sort of peasant dance that probably involves sabres and whips. The third movement returns us to the Stygian gloom of the first, but only more so. A movement of such dark and bitter ruminations that it seems all light has gone from the world.

Quartet No.3 of 1927 is a brief but highly intense work with no gaps between movements. The first movement is similar to that of No.2, furtive and subdued, but with occasional outbursts of grief and anger. This gives way quite suddenly to another cruel and frenzied dance filled with every conceivable effect that might be drawn from the instruments. It ends with a harsh chromatic stabbing before subsiding to the first part of the third movement, which is one of glacial contemplation. This gradually builds back into a frenzy in which one might swear that bombs can be heard falling, before climaxing with an even more emphatic stabbing.

Quartet No.4 of 1928 is a five movement work the first of which has a spiteful and angular blockiness, with suggestions of devious cunning, like a villainous caricature. This is followed by a quieter, more erratic movement that has a subtly unhinged quality, almost like music to swat flies to. The slow and beautiful central movement is constructed from long and hanging chromatic chords against which solo instruments, mostly cello, ruminate. Strange microtonal harmonic effects add to its otherworldliness. The sadness is relieved by an acrobatic movement of great vigour, and arguably even some skewed form of wit, made entirely out of pizzicato, including the slaps of the infamous Bartók pizzicato. The final movement is another vicious, slicing peasant dance.

No.5 of 1934 is another 5 movement work. The first opens with an almost Beethovenian assertiveness, with taut, muscular patterns that are both earthy and highly abstract. The second movement is one of slow liturgical parody. Bartok was a strict atheist who wrote no religious music but in this we seem to hear stillness and prayer, and then a chromatic disappointment when those prayers go unanswered. The central movement is close as we come to gaiety in the whole cycle, but even this is infected with a sardonic twist. The fourth movement seems like a strange attempt to blend the emotional dimensions of the preceding two movements with a highly ambiguous resultant. The final movement is a return to the strident intensity of the first with, in my opinion, some of the finest writing in the whole series, including the strange and lugubrious `barrel-organ' music.

No.6 of 1939 is a four movement work, each of which begins with the statement of a slowly rambling, melancholy figure, with more or less accompaniment. The first movement follows the solo statement of this figure with intense music that seems to pit the Beethovenian tendency heard in No.5 against the more Debussy-like language of the earlier works. The figure is followed in the second movement by a lopsided march, that must continually overcome obstacles in order to maintain its momentum. It includes a strange interlude involving what sound like highly chromatic balalaikas. The third movement gives us a peasant dance theme that is constantly interrupted by more difficult material that prevents it from ever getting going. The effect is one of frustration. The final movement is a slow, painful one in which the mournful potential of the leading figure is finally worked out in full. It ends on a note of complete emptiness and desolation, almost as if he knew that he would be writing no more quartets in his lifetime.

So, to be fair these works are no bundle of laughs. But they are packed full of deadly passion, devastating intelligence, the occasional turn of savage wit, but above all a strange and desolate beauty.

This is an excellent set of Bartok's string quartets and is fabulous value for money. I think I'm right in saying that the set was issued originally in the mid-1990s on Erato, a lable that has pretty much vanished as the "major" record labels become "minor". The set offers stunning performances, as noted by both UK and US professional critics, but rarely appears on "the radar" of record buyers. At the price, you really can't go wrong and I would recommend this CD as a great first choice for those curious about this supposedly "difficult" music.

In my view the most consistantly excellent set of Bartok's quartet recordings and my personal favouite. It did have a very short life on Erato before that label was swallowed by Warner. All credit to Warner for reissuing at this great price, but it is true that Erato had no time to promote and so an accident of timing has prevented these recordings becoming classics, as they deserve. You will not find no.s 3,4 or 6 done better by anyone, anywhere in the catalogue. Buy this now while you still can!