REVIEW:

Among quartets that dominated the recorded chamber music scene during the period from the 1960s through to the 1990s, two in particular stand out for their refinement and perfectionist attention to detail. Although the Juilliard Quartet has in general fared well on CD, much of Sony’s ‘Epic’ Juilliard legacy has yet to reappear. Like the Juilliards, the Tokyo Quartet excelled in Bartók. Their superb 1975-80 set of the quartets for DG, recorded in London and New York, has just come out on DG Eloquence (480 7120) but a rival version of the First Quartet, recorded some eight years before the DG version—just two years after the ensemble was formed—has recently been released by Hänssler Classic as part of a recital from the 1971 Schwetzingen Festival. Personnel-wise, only the second violinist is different (Yoshiko Nakura would be replaced by Kikue Ikeda). The performances of Bartók’s First Quartet are conceptually similar: if you cast an eye across comparative timings, the third ‘movement’ opens at different points of the score on each disc, though in general the 1971 live performance trades pointillist precision for a more robust approach. Likewise Beethoven’s Harp Quartet, where the Presto tears off at a terrific lick, though much else is poised and the work’s closing moments have impressive panache. My favourite performance, though, is Berg’s Quartet, Op 3, the second movement awash with shifting textures and expressive gestures. That one item alone makes the CD a pretty enticing prospect.

-- Gramophone