Even in the context of it no longer being unusual to present Bartók's string quartets as firmly classical works, rather than majoring on their Hungarian folk echoes, the Jerusalem Quartet's Bartók's is still striking for its sheer polish and beauty of tone. We heard it with the first installment of their cycle, covering numbers 2, 4 and 6. Now we have it again with numbers 1, 3 and 5.
The beauty doesn't come at the expense of drama or momentum, either. Thinking of momentum in particular, Quartet No. 1's final Allegro vivace is bristling with it, although it's perhaps other qualities that leap most to the fore across this ravishing reading. Written in 1909 as a farewell to the violinist Stefi Geyer, for whom Bartók had long nursed a painful, unrequited love, this work is a melding of his late Romantic, Germanic or Austro-Hungarian early background, with the new influences of Debussy and folk music, and here the melding of all this is often sublime. For instance drop in at at 2'15” and 8'37” in the final movement for ecstatic climaxes which, to the already intoxicating wholetone harmonies and pentatonic scales, these four bring a luminosity of tone and sumptuously wide sound that brings shimmering Debussy orchestral scores to mind. Or for an example of the Viennese elegance with which they've dealt with the Hungarian folk echoes, head to the violin double-stops preceding that second climax (from 7'00” onwards) which are all the more effective for the Jerusalem not having taken the overt gypsy shindig route.
On to 1927 for the Third Quartet - and Bartók's later, more concentrated and abstract style - and under the Jerusalem's fingertips its succession of special string effects are bringing fresh sonic treats at every twist and turn: eerily beautiful sul ponticello passages; glissandi despatched with both firm control and fluid flexibility; a fabulous depth of tone when the score (often) demands; razer-sharp definition to the lines, whether over homophony or contrapuntal interweavings. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz