As the Takacs take on Haydn's last quartets (including the Op. 103 which remained unfinished at his death) they do so in the context of two highly praised authentic- or period-instrument performances which have been recorded within the last year. Exactly what makes a period instrument is inevitably a moot point as far as strings are concerned: the Takacs, unlike the Mosaiques (Astree Auvidis/Koch International) and the Salomon (Hyperion), do not name and date their instruments, but I would be willing to bet that their pedigree is no less respectable.
What counts, of course, is the mode of playing: both the Mosaiques and the generally more sophisticated, worldly-wise Salomon use very little vibrato and observe microscopically both the letter and the spirit of Haydn's every dynamic marking. This is not to imply that the Takacs fall down on this latter point. Rather, their expressive vocabulary is simply couched in the more expansive timbres, the more 'vocal' phrasing of playing which does not set out to make an historical point.
That having been said, I must come clean at once and admit that, as an all-round performance, that of the Mosaiques Quartet is for me unparalleled in insight and excitement. The second movement of the first Op. 77 quartet epitomizes their respective qualities.
The Mosaiques open with aching appoggiaturas and sforzandos, with a minute attention to every slur and staccato which makes one feel and 'see' the very fabric of the score even with closed eyes. More important, their lack of vibrato actually serves to emphasize the Beethovenian remoteness of the movement's modulations, the richness and the sense of the unpredictable in its harmonic language. The Takacs, on the other hand, draw attention to the movement's wide expanses of resonance, its long arcs of melody. The euphony, rather than the exploratory quality of its harmonic langauge tells as the Takacs create quite a different emotional world. Here the bass theme is emollient, not disquieting, and each instrument folds in with the other in a perfection of ensemble.
After experiencing the grave beauty of the Mosaique's Op. 77 No. 2 Andante, the clean part-writing of the Takacs seems almost too homogenous. This must, though, remain a matter of taste. The Takacs Quartet come into their own in the lusty, swinging Menuettos, kicking all the time over into the spirit of scherzo. Gabor Takacs-Nagy's first violin, thrilling throughout in its diamantine intonation, leaps from open string to the heights for the Minuet of No. 1, and finds a nice balance of balm and fragmentation in the Op. 103 movements which some listeners may find over-phrased (and certainly over-respirated!) in the Mosaiques.'