Bartók String Quartets

The Finnish string quartet Meta4 has now achieved international recognition and regularly plays on the great stages of the world. In their new album, featuring the first and fifth quartets of Béla Bartók, Meta4 turns once again – as a follow up to their hugely successful 2011 recording of Shostakovich quartets – to a program of 20th century masterpieces. There is little doubt that Bartók is among the boldest quartet composers since Beethoven. His irrepressible expression will meet with the equally distinctive style of the four Finns and leads to incredibly expressive, emotionally charged interpretations. The uncompromising musical standards offered by these musicians take hold of the capricious ideas and unorthodox forms of the Hungarian master to deliver what will most likely be the string quartet album of the year.

From the opening funeral dirge of the Quartet No.1 to the incandescent frenzy that concludes the fifth, this disc offers a genuine panorama of the Bartókian universe. It's a world unto itself, constantly stamped with the heritage of Hungarian folklore so dear to the composer. Two years after a first volume devoted to the even-numbered works (Nos. 2, 4 and 6), the musicians of the Jerusalem Quartet expertly complete their recording of a key cycle of modern chamber music, a musical saga drawn on the scale of a lifetime.

The Végh Quartet was not only one of the finest string quartets from mid-twentieth century Europe, but its style was never subjected to radical change over the years from personnel changes because the four original players remained members for 38 of the 40 years of the ensemble's existence. Its style evolved in subtle ways, of course, but its essential character endured until 1978: the quartet was Central European in its sound, with a bit more prominence given to the cello in order to build tonal qualities from the bottom upward. The Végh Quartet was best known for its cycles – two each – of the Beethoven and Bartók quartets. It also performed and recorded many of the Haydn quartets, as well as numerous other staples of the repertory by Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, and Debussy. For a group that disbanded in 1980, its recordings are still quite popular, with major efforts available in varied reissues from Music & Arts, Archipel, Naïve, and Orfeo.

The six string quartets of Béla Bartók mark a high point in the genre, and even though their myriad technical demands, rhythmic complexity, and bracing dissonances are no longer obstacles to frequent performance, they still present a major challenge for any string quartet. The Heath Quartet has been performing since 2002, and it has considerable experience with repertoire ranging from Beethoven to contemporary music, though this 2017 set on Harmonia Mundi shows that even after 15 years of music-making, these musicians can still be in awe of Bartók's achievement.

Among the top performers of Béla Bartók's six string quartets, the Emerson String Quartet has had few rivals, and it is perhaps only matched in technical prowess and expressive clarity by the Takács String Quartet in its 1998 recordings on London, and historically, by the Juilliard String Quartet in its legendary 1963 cycle for Columbia. While the Takács may be more heated in its folk-like expressions and fiery rhythms, and the Juilliard more coolly classical in tone and execution, the Emerson takes a legitimate position between the two: there is room for some flexibility in Bartók, and to the extent that the Emerson gives a balanced presentation of the composer's impulses and aesthetics, the interpretations are effective and feel authentic without ever falling into clichés.