Gramophone Notes
THE other day I had occasion to play over two .recordings of Schubert's " Death and the Maiden " Quartet ; one was made for His Master's Voice by the Budapest Quartet, the other for Columbia by the London String Quartet. There can be no doubt that the difficult problem of comparing one good quartet with another is considerably reduced by the gramophone. For example, in appraising these two per- formances I was able to repeat passage after passage on the H.M.V. discs and compare each with the corresponding passage in the Columbia recording. Comparative criticism of this kind is impossible, of course, in the concert-hall. It is also undesirable. The enlightened critic, therefore, should welcome any invention which enables him to carry out a more closely analytical process, especially in a field so unexplored as that of quartet-playing.
My final impression at the end of this analysis is that the performance of the London String Quartet is the more secure and the better controlled of the two. There are some people who prefer temperamental warmth to safety. These will prefer the H.M.V. records. For my part, the impetuous manner of the Budapest players causes me to be continually anxious lest they should disturb the balance. Actually, the balance is only rarely at fault, but the uneasy feeling remains ; and when this manner leads to mannerism, the objection is more fully justified. The mannerism to which I refer is that of swelling and then diminishing the tone of any note or chord which is held beyond the length of a bar. As against this the viola of the L.S.Q. is too reticent at various important points, especially during the Trio (Part 6). The 'cellists can be individually compared during the solo in the second variation ; to declare in favour of either, however, would call for a real patriot.
I have noted a great number of details, some of which are favourable to Columbia, others to H.M.V., but the final judgment was not arrived at by the method of the score board, but as the result of comparing the performances as organic
Previous page
