The Quartet Scene, East and West

String quartets were once classified according to certain perceived national characteristics. The typical American group (forget about the melting pot) was a tough bunch whose work was predicated on drive and hard edges. East European ensembles were purveyors of a lush, rhythmically free style. Britons were undemonstrative, etc.

While once there may have been some validity in such simplifications, the listener unfamiliar with the performers’ names in recent chamber music recordings would be unlikely to determine their national origins.

Britain’s Lindsay String Quartet brings a powerful ensemble personality to three Haydn quartets: in F minor, Opus 20, No. 5; in B-flat, Opus 33, No. 4, and in D, Opus 71, No. 2, all recorded live at London’s premier chamber music venue, the Wigmore Hall (ASV 674). These are aggressive but hardly slapdash readings. The Lindsay is attentive to modern scholarship in matters of Classical articulation without totally forswearing the use of expressive portamento.

And if Czech ensembles are inevitably fat-toned purveyors of Romanticism, then what is the Panocha Quartet doing playing the first four of Haydn’s magical Opus 33 quartets (Supraphon 0634, mid-price) with such short-stroke lightness, such zippy incisiveness and elegant wit? The question is rhetorical.

From Hungary comes the New Budapest Quartet, a daring name if ever there was one, with what would seem to be its debut recording (Hyperion 66401). While these gentlemen may not efface memories of the Budapest Quartet, the present group has a claim to authenticity denied their illustrious predecessor: the old Budapest in its final and finest configuration comprised four Russian-born Americans.

The “New” group presents the first two quartets of Beethoven’s Opus 18 in finely tuned, sweet-toned readings that miss some of the edginess and presentiments of later-Beethoven danger lurking in both scores. Perhaps one could summon more enthusiasm for their playing if we were offered something more necessary than this first installment of yet another Beethoven cycle.

The prospect of the 20th CD version of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” (MCA 25899) didn’t rouse the passions, either. Still, the New World String Quartet, Harvard University’s first quartet in residence, demands attention, responding with undeniable skill and flair to the familiar measures.

The New World, as captured in MCA’s attractively intimate sonics, has a big, warm ensemble tone joined to a driving style that moves the music along smartly but with no feeling of haste. The coupling finds the New World illuminating much earlier, but hardly negligible, Schubert, his Quartet in G minor, D. 173.

If a Russian school of quartet playing still exists, its vestiges reside in Moscow’s venerable, venerated Borodin Quartet. While its kind of grand manner is sorely missed in some repertory, the Borodin’s big-toned, emotionally generous style is as ill-suited to the flickering half-lights of the Debussy and Ravel Quartets as is the over-resonant recording (Virgin Classics 91077).

London’s hot-ticket Arditti String Quartet, which specializes in 20th-Century scores--consider them a Kronos Quartet without the props, funky threads and carefully cultivated mystique--has begun what promises to be an exciting series for the French Disques Montaigne label. The initial release (without catalogue number) pairs the two works in the medium by Alban Berg: the String Quartet, Opus 3, and the “Lyric Suite.”

The interpretations blaze with conviction and skill, without quite capturing the off-kilter lyricism of what some take to be the ironic title of the Suite. Still, it would be foolish to argue with such technical mastery, or with the solidity of tone these artists bring to music that is often encountered as a succession of frenetic scrapes and scratches, distancing us from the score’s elusive emotional core.

The Artaria Quartet, while taking its name from the old Viennese publisher of chamber music, hails from San Francisco, where its members are principals of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. The foursome presents on period instruments three of Boccherini’s six quintets for strings with guitar obbligato (Richard Savino), including the irresistible G-major Quintet, with its stomping Fandango finale (Harmonia Mundi 9007026).

The playing combines sweetness of tone and rhythmic punch, with Elisabeth Le Guin meriting particular praise for her skillful execution of the tortuous, high-lying cello parts.