While not the first complete recorded cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets, the
Amadeus Quartet's late-'50s early-'60s set of the complete Beethoven quartets may be the first great recorded cycle. The
Amadeus Quartet was a part-Austrian, part-English ensemble that fused elegance and intelligence and expressivity with virtuosity to create a style of quartet playing wholly suited to the Viennese classics from Mozart through Brahms but which fit Beethoven like a hand-tailored suit. While other ensembles had recorded the Beethoven quartets before the
Amadeus, none of those performances had the clarity and lucidity the
Amadeus brought to them. Forty years later, the
Amadeus' Op. 18 Quartets are still among the best ever recorded: graceful and gracious, witty and intelligent, polished and expressive, the
Amadeus' performances embody all that is best in the "early" quartets. The
Amadeus' Op. 59 is nearly as great: its complete control of tempo and texture clarifies the thematic and harmonic structures of the quartets and only in the most strenuous passages and deepest movements does the
Amadeus seem ever so slightly out of its depths. Similarly, its Op. 74 is one of the most beautiful and expressive ever recorded, but it cannot quite express the unfettered fury of the Quartet Op. 95. Only in the "late" quartets does the
Amadeus sound not entirely up to the challenge of Beethoven's music. While it plays it all superbly, there are times when it seems unable to get beneath the surface of the music to the spiritual depths below and one is left with the impression of great things left unsaid. For all the clarity and lucidity of the
Amadeus' performance, there is a sense that it cannot quite face the ultimate profundities of late Beethoven.