Bartok - String Quartet nr. 3

I've been tiptoeing for a while around Bartok's quartets. Supposedly they count as the pinnacle of his impressive oeuvre. And I am not very familiar with them. So there was some apprehension in attacking this musical Everest. But the happy discovery of the Maconchy quartets made it somewhat easier to shunt to the Bartok series.

Just as Maconchy's Third Quartet (1938) is a rather short work (even taking into account that none in her series extends beyond 20 minutes), Bartok's Third (1927) is a dense and concise statement. Well, talking about density: compared to the Bartok quartet, Maconchy's sounds positively rhapsodic! Despite its short duration Bartok's quartet is a musical splinterbomb that explodes with a dizzying fury of ideas. It very much shares the charged energy and kaleidoscopic fabric of the First Pianoconcerto which immediately precedes it (1926). Just as in the concerto, Bartok works with ultra-reduced musical cells as the basis for a dense process of thematic expansion and variation. As a result it sounds defiantly strident and modernist.

I listened to various interpretations in quick succession. First the recent recording with the Belcea Quartet. This is a very gripping interpretation, bold and very colourful and sounding as if the musicians are completely on top of their game. Then the New Budapest Quartet on Hyperion. A big disappointment. Small wonder these guys have never been really able to convince me of the greatness of these works. The performance is underpowered, uneven and hesitant, hinting only at the shockwaves that this music is able to generate. I have friends who swear by the readings of the Vegh Quartet. I have their 1970s recordings and indeed they are very good. Earthy and muscular but not quite as virtuosic as the Belcea. But I prefer them to the Juilliard Quartet on Sony whose reading is rather poised and urbane but lacks some of the Vegh's and Belcea's grit. The Keller Quartet on Warner then. Very persuasive reading. Though the reading sounds slightly more lyrical and relaxed than the Vegh and Belcea, there is certainly no lack of commitment and focus. Pity the recording is a little lacklustre. So, as far as I can tell the Belcea come out on top. But I am very happy to have the Vegh and Keller interpretations too. I will certainly return to the Belcea recording in the next couple of days. I am looking into the Hungarian and Hagen Quartet too (both available as budget re-issues). I will steer free of the Emerson and Takacs, which I suspect to be too much in-your-face.