Search - The Juilliard Quartet :: Bartok: The String Quartets (1950 Recordings)

Bartók's quartets are regarded by many as the greatest since Beethoven's. Like his, they span the composer's creative life, and though they are not presented in chronological order here, Bartók's changing styles and compositional development are clearly apparent, as is the motivic connection between them. They have become part of the mainstream repertoire, and for this, much of the credit must go to the Juilliard Quartet, formed at the Juilliard School of Music in 1946, which in 1949 presented the complete cycle publicly in New York for the first time. As artists-in-residence and members of the faculty, the players always championed contemporary composers, particularly Bartók, and have instilled that attitude in generations of young musicians. This monaural recording was made in 1950 by the group's founding members (a stereo version was made later, after two personnel changes) and it is superb. The young players' technical, intellectual, and emotional command of these extremely difficult, problematic works is astounding. Bartók's musical language, so closely tied to his native Hungarian idiom, seems to come to them naturally. They handle his complicated, constantly changing rhythms with consummate ease and bring out the character and the wildly contrasting moods and emotions of the music with deeply felt expressiveness, from the obsessive dances--unbridled but always controlled--to the heartbreaking lamentations of the last quartet, written on the eve of World War II. Listeners familiar only with the group's later constellations of players may be surprised at the purity, warmth, and homogeneity of its sound (the two violinists are almost indistinguishable), and at the moderate, expansive tempos, despite the Quartet's reputation for speed and high-voltage tension, allowing time and repose to give loving attention to details and expression to every note. The booklet contains two errors: Jenö Léner was a Hungarian violinist who led his own string quartet; the violist of the Kolisch Quartet, dedicatees of Bartók's sixth quartet, was Eugene Lehner, coach and mentor to innumerable young groups. The clarinetist who recorded Bartók's "Contrasts" with Robert Mann must be Stanley Drucker, principal of the New York Philharmonic. --Edith Eisler