BaL 6.02.21 - Bartók: String Quartet No. 5.

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't much like the Emersons either... I'm sort of intrigued to hear the Takács, although I didn't take to their "highly praised" Beethoven.

I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with the 1998 Gramophone Award-Winning Takacs Cycle, of which the 5th (playing now - wow!) is a scorchingly brilliant, poetically evocative example. It really does have everything - earthy and folky, staggeringly virtuosic, and truly idiomatic. Punching rhythmic drive and bated-breath delicacy (just sample the 5th's adagio...). All the strange nocturnal colours, visions and insects are in there....

Fabulously and spaciously engineered, it set new standards when it appeared; still sonically reference-class today.

Not sure which Vegh was preferred; 1954 for me, but both rank high in my personal Bartokian Universe, along with the amazing Takacs. Anyone wishing to follow up the BaL should seek out Rob Cowan's excellent Gramophone Collection survey of the Bartok Cycle, in 3/2001. Of the stereo Vegh he says "hearing them play is like hearing Bartok play" though he admits they were "a little past their technical prime" by then. So, back to the Takacs; the Kellers were a favourite of his too.

(PS Richard - perhaps give the Emerson "The Haydn Project" a try? It may surprise you. It is really lovely, I've played it almost continuously last night and this afternoon...often made me smile through the clouds and the rain..)

[Richard Barrett]

PS Richard - perhaps give the Emerson "The Haydn Project" a try?

Who, me? I'm only halfway through the LHQ's op. 17 so far! and there's the new Nelsons Bruckner 8 which I managed a few minutes of before being called away... and there's your Venturini, and Leila Schayegh's Sonatas and Partitas, and a new recording of Eisler's Deutsche Sinfonie... but OK, I'll put it in the favourites and get around to it sooner or later.

[visualnickmos]

I don't much like the Emersons either... I'm sort of intrigued to hear the Takács, although I didn't take to their "highly praised" Beethoven.

I too, was rather disappointed in the Emerson cycle, bought in a sale, thank God! I listened 2 or 3 times to the cycle, but it just didn't seem to 'do it' for me.
Takács, on the other hand - benchmark. I also have a fondness for the Vermeer Quartet on Naxos. And of course, the Hungarian Quartet on DG 1962, which has a charm and character very befitting of the set.

[Richard Barrett]

And of course, the Hungarian Quartet on DG 1962, which has a charm and character very befitting of the set.

Indeed. Those were my first recordings of the music, I wouldn't be without them.

[Bryn]

I too, was rather disappointed in the Emerson cycle, bought in a sale, thank God! I listened 2 or 3 times to the cycle, but it just didn't seem to 'do it' for me.
Takács, on the other hand - benchmark. I also have a fondness for the Vermeer Quartet on Naxos. And of course, the Hungarian Quartet on DG 1962, which has a charm and character very befitting of the set.

I found the Emersons' QEH survey, back in the early days of DAB, rather good but the studio-based recordings much less so.

[richardfinegold]

Indeed. Those were my first recordings of the music, I wouldn't be without them.

I had those on a very boxy Vox Box with untrackable vinyl. Did they ever make it to digital?

[Richard Barrett]

I had those on a very boxy Vox Box with untrackable vinyl. Did they ever make it to digital?

This is the one I had in mind https://www.discogs.com/Bela-Bartok-...elease/5677890 - doesn't look like that was ever out on Vox. It did come out on CD though.

[richardfinegold]

This is the one I had in mind https://www.discogs.com/Bela-Bartok-...elease/5677890 - doesn't look like that was ever out on Vox. It did come out on CD though.

My lps were destroyed in a house flood 35 years ago, so perhaps the Vox Box featured an ensemble called the New Hungarian Quartet?
I would like to see one of those retro boxes of the (real) Hungarian Quartet. Their Beethoven Quartets were my first chamber music records and I was lucky to pick up a CD set in France in the early digital days. Their Mozart Haydn Quartets were on Vox, and their Borodin Second got a very favorable mention in a recent Gramophone retrospective of that piece. I had no idea of the existance of the Barton on DG until R.B. referenced it

[vinteuil]

.

... I enjoyed this Building a Library a lot, and found Kate Molleson's presentation really helpful. It did one of the best things these programmes can do - it made me want to go back and listen to the work.

I already have the Fine Arts and the Emersons and the Vegh, so probably won't be looking for anything else at the moment. But the extracts she played of the Takács were compelling ...

I have the Vegh in a very useful scribendum box (which I see was much cheaper in June 2017... ) -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01F8VZVFO

.

[Bryn]

.

... I enjoyed this Building a Library a lot, and found Kate Molleson's presentation really helpful. It did one of the best things these programmes can do - it made me want to go back and listen to the work.

I already have the Fine Arts and the Emersons and the Vegh, so probably won't be looking for anything else at the moment. But the extracts she played of the Takács were compelling ...

I have the Vegh in a very useful scribendum box (which I see was much cheaper in June 2017... ) -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01F8VZVFO

This Vegh set caused some debate, here. Despite asurances as to its provenance from the company concerned, I retain my doubts as to its "GENUINE STEREO" origins. Fine performances, nonetheless:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bartok-String-Quartets-Végh-Quartet/dp/B01N9C5C0M/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=bartok+vegh&qid=1612705781&s=music&sr=1-3

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I listed the Takács Quartet as download only, which is indeed the case. But I see someone is exploiting this with an offer of a single new 2CD set of the Bartok String Quartets for £131.19!

[Bryn]

I listed the Takács Quartet as download only, which is indeed the case. But I see someone is exploiting this with an offer of a single new 2CD set of the Bartok String Quartets for £131.19!

Are you sure? That's only 60p less than the price of the coplete works boxed set which included the Takács Quartet set

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Béla-Bartók-Complete-Various-Artists/dp/B01A72FXH0/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bartok+decca&qid=1612717026&s=music&sr=1-1

[Richard Barrett]

I've just been listening to the Takács recording of no.5. Well yes, it's very good, no doubt about that. I think the reason I would still tend towards the Hagen recording is nothing to do with either being better- or not so well-played as the other, since at this level of playing it can be assumed that everything about a performance has been put there on purpose by the performers and reflects the way they want it to sound. For me it's more a personal matter, that the Hagens' approach to the expressive qualities of the music is more in line with how I feel about it - not just that I accept the expressive decisions they take but that I agree with them, if that makes sense. Maybe it's something to do with the Takács taking a slightly more "romantic" approach. But they do play this music beautifully.

[Dave2002]

This Vegh set caused some debate, here. Despite asurances as to its provenance from the company concerned, I retain my doubts as to its "GENUINE STEREO" origins. Fine performances, nonetheless:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bartok-Stri...s=music&sr=1-3

I looked at the back of the CD cover, and it does indeed claim to be genuine stereo. Not impossible, though perhaps unlikely. Were there studios seriously making stereo recordings even experimental ones, back then? Yes - we know there were some experiments which went way back (1940s - maybe even earlier), but they were few and far between. There was clearly interest even from the ealier part of the 20th Century, say from 1920 onwards, and some quite unusual ways (or so it now seems) of attempting to achieve stereo sound. There were some magnetic tape recordings in the 1950s, while stereo LPs hit the shop shelves around 1958 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound The first LP recordings sold would have probably been recorded a year or two earlier.

[Bryn]

I looked at the back of the CD cover, and it does indeed claim to be genuine stereo. Not impossible, though perhaps unlikely. Were there studios seriously making stereo recordings even experimental ones, back then? Yes - we know there were some experiments which went way back (1940s - maybe even earlier), but they were few and far between. There was clearly interest even from the ealier part of the 20th Century, say from 1920 onwards, and some quite unusual ways (or so it now seems) of attempting to achieve stereo sound. There were some magnetic tape recordings in the 1950s, while stereo LPs hit the shop shelves around 1958 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound The first LP recordings sold would have probably been recorded a year or two earlier.

There's a rather famous stereo recording of a live performance of Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto from during the war. You can even hear the anti-aircraft guns in the background. Praga claimed that these Bartok recordings were made simultaneously with the mono ones issued on LP and that the stereo tapes were intended for the American market but not used at the time. They offered no information as to how they came by them or who owns/ed the copyright on them.