Customer Reviews

Bartók: 6 String Quartets

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For years I had the Novak recording of this set of quartets and found the quartets sort of lifeless and rarely listened to them. I set out to find a recording that would bring these quartets to life.
I listened to the Emerson Quartet performance. Techniquely it is outstanding but it really sounds rushed and is almost too classical -- lacking some of the folk "sound" that Bartok likes to put into his music -- which can be found in these quartets.
This Hugarian String Quartet recording has the balance between technical accuracy and Hugarian folksong understanding. It is thrilling and will make your heart beat fast. The sound is great and the tempi are just right -- never pushed, but never lacking energy. This is not at all a boring performance. This performance will open your eyes as to why these quartets are so spectacular.
While this is a performance in the early 60's, the sound is rich and at least as good as the more recent performances.
I read the Penquin review of the quartets. They question why this set is considered a Legendary Recording by DGG. I am not sure what the motivations were for discounting this recording, and I cannot agree with the Penguin review on this disc.
I think that this Original Legendary Recording should not be neglected. It is a powerful and moving listening experience. I am actually surprised that it is not an Amazon Essential Recording.
Go for it.

The Hungarian quartet plays each note as though they are improvising. This recording is crystal clear and the performance is positively inspiring. They do take some very minor liberties, occasionally substituting pizz for arco or vice-versa. This in no way diminishes the strength of these recordings, but it is interesting to note.

I own the Emerson Quartet's recording and the 1950's Juilliard Recording, and have heard the Juilliard perform the 5th quartet live in 2005. The Emerson is ferocious in the fast sections, but seems somewhat lifeless in the slow movements. The Juilliard plays the slow sections beautifully, but the faster sections sound mechanical. Both recordings are 100% accurate to the score. But every time I want to hear these pieces, I play the Hungarian version, whether following the score or not.

Other versions of note:

- I once heard some of the fabled 1960's Juilliard String Quartet recording (not available on CD). It was wonderful, but that was too long ago for me to be able to compare it to this recording.

- I have it from a very reliable source that the Vegh Quartet version Bartok: Complete String Quartets is excellent, but I've never heard it.

This rendition of Bartok is a wonderful performance and I would add that the recording quality is superlative. One of the reasons I enjoy strings is their tonal quality or timbre, and this recording excels in that regard; really gorgeous sounding instruments, great recording technique, and a soulful display of fine musicianship. Stylistically, it's a slower interpretation than I had expected, having become acquainted with the Emerson version before this one. I find myself in awe of the beauty of the tone and sonorities and the genuine emotion conveyed in this work. ;-)

I have not heard the CD transfer of this recording, so my five-star rating should be taken to refer only to the musical content and not to the audio quality--I own only the original DG vinyl set (or rather, an early 1970s reissue of it on vinyl). Some of the criticisms that have been leveled against these performances are, I think, valid. At times the Hungarians do sound almost cautious, especially when compared to the recordings by the Takacs, Emerson, and Tokyo quartets. But one should keep in mind that the Hungarians' leader, Zoltan Szekely, was a personal friend of Bartok's and the dedicatee of both his 2nd violin concerto (the only one which Bartok wanted to survive him) and his 2nd rhapsody for violin and piano. They were sonata partners, and consulted frequently on matters of musical style and taste. Szekely, a fine composer in his own right, analyzed the quartets in exacting detail, often rebarring them as an experiment to bring out what he felt were the intended rhythmic stresses, which he felt were in many cases obscured by conventional meters expected by publishers and lesser performers. The substitutions of pizzicati for arco in some cases were also very careful choices on Szekely & his cohorts' parts, though they were not necessarily sanctioned overtly by Bartok during his lifetime. I was lucky to study for a short time both the 1st and 4th quartets under two of the Hungarian Quartet's members in Banff in the late 1970s and early 1980s--violist Denes Koromzay and cellist Gabriel (Gabor) Magyar--and Szekeley's sophisticated, scholarly approach to these richly-endowed masterpieces was definitely the norm for every member of the group. So if you are looking for authenticity and a version that will reveal much more than it hides, in terms of the music's architecture and spirit, I would at least give this one a serious listen even if it doesn't remain your favorite.

This historic performance gives musicians and music lovers a most valuable reference of Bártok's chamber music interpretation. Knowledge of tradition is very important to music intepreters and composers. This special performance of Ungarian String Quartet should be utterly enjoyed by both musicians and music lovers. It can be regarded as a live historic interpretation since Szekely, Kuttner, Kormazy and Magyar were contemporary to Béla Bártok and very close to his art of composition and performance. I listened to this Ungarisches Streichquartett "Lps" of Bartok's 6 String Quartets when I was still a student, back in 1963. Its six 33-rpm DGG black vinil records remain in my private library and I still listen to them with students and colleagues. These 2 (original-image bit-processing) CDs will help people go deeper into the study of the 6 Bártok String Quartets and the music performance for string quartets.Congratulations to DGG for this precious "2 CDs Album" which gives both music lovers and experts a new opportunity to listen to this marvellous work.

Bartok's quartets are among the greatest of the last century, they are difficult to appreciate but the Hungarian quartet make the job easier, their playing is superb and they handle these works with power, vigor and depth. If you are a fan of Bartok don't miss this record, it is one of the best!!!

Excellent recording and performance; having heard a live performance many years ago in two nights of performance when no-one was performing Bartok in the U.S, it brought back wonderful memories. Absolutely superb!

Bartok's quartets are among the very greatest music of the 20th century. And the Emerson performances are certainly excellent. In movements calling for power and drive, they are as good as it gets.

But the slow movements, especially in the fourth and fifth quartets, lack the quality of inwardness, as if the music were welling up from silence, that I hear in the Vegh Quartet (sonically improved in the current transfer from Naive) and the Takacs Quartet (their 1998 Decca recording, not the overdriven, much earlier performance on Hungarton). I also remain fond of the 1963 Juilliard Quartet cycle (their best but, perversely, the only one of their three recordings not reissued on CD in the U.S., though it's available from England). The Takacs set has everything: power, richness of tone, inwardness, and impeccable technique. I would also rate the Juilliard 1963 and the Vegh (despite their less polished playing) ahead of the Emerson. I haven't heard the Hungarian Quartet in its CD transfer but remember it as being very good, a little bit lacking in the qualities of drive and power that the Takacs, Juilliard, and Emerson provide.

We are lucky that so many fine quartets have recorded these works.

Some parts of this are very good which makes it worth having. There are sections that get tedious and parts that are just grating the nerve.There are some intervalic relations I don't understand how anyone could enjoy.