Bartok's String Quartets: The Juilliard's first recording

Last week I posted a CD of premiere recordings of Bartok's orchestral works as an example of the "nostalgia trap" that the historical record collector is prone to falling into. Good performances, no doubt, but ones that have since given way to better ones. So here is yet another historical recording of Bartok's work. No worries though. This one is actually worth your time and still stands eye-to-eye with the best today.

The Juilliard Quartet was, for the latter half of the 20th century, arguably the United States' most famous string quartet. They were especially well known for espousing the cause of living composers not merely by commissioning their work, but playing it to polished Atomic age perfection. On one hand able to make lucid and vibrant Elliot Carter's knotty polyrhythms, they could also play a Ravel of quiet sleekness, Brahms that was gruff yet never austere. They were especially famous for their interpretations of Bartok's quartets, being the first quartet to record the integral set. The Juilliard still performs today, though the founding members have long since retired.

The Juilliard made three recordings altogether of the Bartok quartets, but this one here with the original incarnation of the group from 1950, is probably their very best. Whereas their later recordings finds them sounding more mellow, here Bartok is presented as a wide eyed modernist; his music still startlingly new and even disturbing. Some may prefer a more lyrical, relaxed Bartok, but the Juilliard's playing here is undeniably thrilling. Their playing has a chrome sheen and lustre that becomes this music very well. It's hard to single out particularly memorable moments in this set as there are so many. But if I can point out just one, it would have to be their recording of the Sixth Quartet. Poised delicately between anger, mockery, and sorrow, the Sixth can be a difficult nut to crack, but the Juilliard sail straight to the core of the music. The Marcia and Burletta are as acidulously biting as needed but they're able to hone into the hopeless grief of the Mesto sections. The closing movement is as bleak as any I've ever heard. Bartok mourning the loss of his mother and of the country he loved so dearly and would transform irrevocably after his emigration.

There are other great recordings of these works. The Vegh, Takacs, Emerson, and others have made superb sets. But this one is still one of the best. The sound of Bartok not as a 20th century institution, but as the flesh and blood man whose vitality still remained within living memory.