First, some thoughts on the Brodsky's programming concept. It was an imaginative idea to commission six new 'reflections' on the individual quartets that make up Beethoven's Op 18, one that I personally applaud. The question is whether collectors who need a set of the Op 18 quartets will want to forego a neat two-CD package for a three-CD box that adds half-a-dozen unfamiliar new works, some of which they may never want to hear again. The delicate matter of comparisons also rears its head: in other words, how - or if - the Brodsky stacks up against its strongest CD 'rivals'.
To answer the second question first: these are, for the most part, keenly attentive, spontaneous performances that sound as if they've been achieved in a minimum of takes. The recordings were made at the Warehouse (home of Ross Pople's London Festival Orchestra) between last December and this January and report a pleasing if occasionally brittle body of tone. Andrew Haveron's first violin is a prominent - sometimes over-prominent - presence, and while some passages suffer from a lack of internal clarity, the overall impression is of earnest musical dialoguing, faithfully reproduced.
All first-movement repeats are honoured and the very different characters of each piece are nicely reflected in the playing. For example, Op 18 No 4's Allegro is more effectively ma non tanto than it was on the new Hagen Quartet recording I reviewed last month (there's almost two minutes' difference between the two timings), even though the Brodsky's sforzandos are less boldly stated. I found the opening of the D major a little foursquare and the opening of the finale a trifle sketchy (things do improve for the repeat). The C minor's Adagio might have benefited from an extra spot of urgency, but the A major is given a delightful performance, bouncy in the opening Allegro and forceful in the finale. As to the set's position in the Beethoven Quartet CD firmament, I'd place it - in terms of quality - roughly half way up (or down) the list of currently available versions.
But then there are six new works to consider, none of which exceeds the quarter-of-an-hour mark. Mexican-born Javier Alvarez is in his forties and honours Op 18 No 1 with a rhythmically complex and decidedly Latin-sounding Metro Nativitas, busy music, cheery but technically challenging (Beethoven's opening makes a fleeting appearance at around 3'19''). Tunde Jegede is still under 30 and seems a trifle uncomfortable about squeezing his style into formal dress (Beethoven's Op 18 No 2 set the precedent), though he later frees himself with some gentle triadic invention.
Jegede's Second Quartet is less immediately likeable than At the Grave of Beethoven by Karen Tanaka (b 1961), the first piece to quote Beethoven unadorned (Op 18 No 3 in this case) and a happy instance of harmonious variation. Sally Beamish had recently been immersing herself in 20th-century American music when she set to work on her American-style Opus California (after Op 18 No 4) and I seem to detect a hint of Bernstein's Serenade in her 'Dreams before Lullabies' third movement. Beethoven is there, too - though less conspicuously than in Dimitri Smirnov's Sixth Quartet, where motives from Beethoven's second and third movement (Op 18 No 5) are slowed to ethereal inactivity. The task of reflecting on the last of the set fell to Elena Firsova whose La Malinconia (named after the Adagio introduction to Beethoven's last movement) pays eloquent though sometimes over-heated homage to its model.
If pressured to make a choice, I'd rate the pieces in the order: Smirnov, Beamish, Firsova, Tanaka, Jegede and Alvarez (though I realise that posterity may well judge my assessment as entirely misguided). All six works make for fascinating encounters, though I'm not sure if (or when) I would want to hear them again - the Smirnov and Beamish pieces excepted. Here, too, the sound is lively and true.
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