Beethoven String Quartet Lindsay

These performances are every bit as searching and exhilarating as the Lindsay’s previous Haydn recordings for ASV. Theirs is chamber-music-making of unusual recreative flair, untouched by the faintest hint of routine. Many quartets still seem to treat Haydn as an agreeable aperitif to the ostensibly meatier fare later in the programme. But both live and on disc the Lindsay bring to the composer the same dedication and interpretative insight that mark their playing of Beethoven or late Schubert.

Recording exclusively for Sanctuary Classics, the Lindsays’ extensive discography includes complete cycles of Beethoven and Bartók, and a series devoted to Haydn, Schubert and to 'The Bohemians'. In 1984 they received the Gramophone Award for their recording of the Beethoven ‘Late’ Quartets. As an enthusiast of the Lindsays, I have long admired their special affinity for the string quartets of Schubert. This four disc box set from Sanctuary Classics on their Resonance label uses previously released material and proves a fitting tribute to the ensemble’s art.

In their survey of Haydn's string quartets for ASV, the Lindsays have set about the business of restoring these Classical masterpieces to their proper place in the repertoire, with all their brilliant wit and brusqueness intact, and without undue sweetening or romanticizing. The point, it seems clear, is to bring Haydn out from under the familiar shadows of Mozart and Beethoven, and to render his quartets as the true models of quartet writing, not as light Rococo divertissements or tamer antecedents of greater works. The Lindsays are sharp in their characterizations of Op. 33, Nos. 3, 5, and 6, and their lean textures, crisp articulation, transparent repartee, and pungent attacks distinguish these performances from more commercially pretty or polished versions.