BARTOK. String Quartets—complete. Vegh Quartet (Sandor Vegh, Sandor ZOldy, violins; Georges Janzer, viola, Paul Szabo, cello). Telefunken SKH25083-T/1-3 (three records, nas, L7-80). Booklet included.

Selected comparisons:

Novak Qt (1/70) SAL3686, 3693-4

Juilliard Qt Nos. 1 and 2 (5/66) (3/70) (R) 61118 Nos. 3 and 4 (5/66) (4/70) (R) 61119 Nos. 5 and 6 (5/66) (5/70) (R) 61120

It has never been disputed, and I doubt if it ever seriously will be, that BartOk's Quartets are one of the central achievements of twentieth-century music. Yet they are rarely heard in the concert hall, so everyone needs recordings. All the above sets maintain an encouragingly high standard both in terms of execution and in their grasp of this music's sometimes difficult idiom. Yet the interpretations are in some— not all—cases rather different, and, after continued listening to these and other versions, one's preferences shift between one ensemble and another from one movement to another. As so often these days, categorical recommendations are nearly impossible. Thus, although the Juilliard's qualities are the easiest to define and their approach is the most consistent, it does not follow that their readings are always the best. Such virtuosity is highly persuasive, and this group is almost unsurpassable in savage dance movements such as the Allegro molto of Quartet No. 2, which they throw off with extraordinary verve; in comparison the Novak, while perfectly secure, sound too low-temperatured. However, the new Vegh performance measures up excellently, and this team is as ghostly as can be in the coda, which is pp and prestissimo. In the finales of Nos. 4 and 5, also, the Juilliard memorably project the music's astonishing combination of physical exhilaration and intellectual density, yet the Vegh, again, are almost as good, and in the later work manage this with a smoother tone.

With the Juilliard every detail is sharply defined, absolutely decisive, and this is particularly valuable in, say, the first movement of No. 5 where each of the numerous themes—and their inversions during the recapitulation—needs to be fully characterised. The Novak are unable to convey this movement's enormous inner tension, yet in the Burletta of the last Quartet, a piece that, with the preceding March, might have been composed especially to display the Juilliard's powers, it is the Vegh who come off best, ramming home every detail of this outlandish inspiration. The Vegh seem preferrable, too, in the allpizzicato fourth movement of No. 4: the Juilliard, as ever, are more insistent with their accents, but the Vegh's lines are tauter and they achieve a strikingly remote ppp. Their Telefunken recording is, of course, the most recent, yet it is not, in general, markedly superior to the older Philips/Novak or CBS/Juilliard pressings and so does not afford them much advantage, although there are exceptions such as the opening movement of No. 5 where the Vegh benefit in the most complex passages from a very clear recorded sound. At times the Juilliard achieve clarity at the expense of dynamics, as in the finale of No. 2, where at, say, fig. 2, they make little distinction between p, mp and mf; the Vegh connect best with the Dostoievskian gloom of this slow movement.

As the reader will by now have gathered, choice usually wavers between the Juilliard and Vegh ensembles, yet there is fine playing by the Novak also. The latter perfectly understand, for example, the rapid shifts of tension necessary in the central movement of No. 1, and they are marvellously light and delicate in the all-muted prestissimo of No. 4. One had expected the later quartets to bring out the differences between these groups most clearly, but this is not so. All three violists, for instance, play the opening solo of No. 6 most beautifully, and there really is little to choose between their treatments of the twin slow movements of No. 5. In a sense, No. 3 is a more severe test than its successors, as this single-movement piece is the most hermetic of the series. But they all do well. As usual, the Juilliard defines each phrase most clearly and produce a more turbulent effect in fast passages, yet the Novak also convey this music's disturbing internal stress, and the Vegh offer an interpretation that is impressive in both its lucidity and avoidance of extremes. The Seconda Parte of this work is another of the few places where Telefunken's recording is significantly better than its older rivals.

In the slow finale of No. 6, the end towards which all the others lead, it is the Vegh who are most searching. And yet they are surpassed, here as elsewhere, by the Hungarian Quartet on DG, whose now-deleted set is the one to which I turn most often for personal listening. No other team has identified so completely with these great works, and it must be hoped that their recordings will return to circulation. Meanwhile, one must end, unhelpfully, by saying that most listeners would be happy with any of the above sets—providing they don't hear the other two. M.H.