The pairing of
Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 5 (1934) with
Paul Hindemith's String Quartet No. 4, Op. 22 (1921), is a clever idea that one might expect of the
Zehetmair Quartet, an intellectually curious ensemble that enjoys programming works to find interesting similarities between them. Both
Bartók's Fifth and
Hindemith's Fourth have points in common, chiefly that each has five movements, planned on an "arch" structure, with the middle movement as the keystone; each is a masterful study of the string quartet's textures, from the densest counterpoint to the most starkly isolated figurations; and each has strongly rhythmic movements, in which martellato (or hammered) bowing in unison is a memorable feature. These performances are meant to make listeners notice such parallels, and the
Zehetmair Quartet demonstrates that there was a commonality between
Bartók's and
Hindemith's quartets; perhaps something in the air made both men achieve strikingly similar results, even though the dates of composition were separated by 13 years. While this album is conceptually appealing and original -- indeed, who has played this intriguing program before? -- listeners may find its sound to be a little too resonant and blurred to make the music clear and the linkages coherent. One wishes the
Zehetmair Quartet had not been recorded in the highly reverberant concert room of the Kulturbühne AmBach in Götzis, but had been recorded in a much drier-sounding environment to bring out finer details with sharper sound.