With this performance, the Hagen Quartet seem resolved to provide argument refuting facile suggestions of Op. 135 as ''a reversion to Haydn'', suggestions which do no credit to either composer. Beethoven learnt more from Haydn than from anyone, and all that he had made his own from that study is put to fascinating use here; but the music is no reversion, and has its own lightness and gaiety. It is a pity to treat the work as if everything after the other late quartets must be of formidable intensity. The first movement has the cleverness of Haydn, but also the sharpwittedness, in Beethoven's own manner; the Hagen treat it with solemnity, gravity, reverence and a heavy hand. Moreover, the opening is spoilt by the dotted-note phrase on the viola twice losing its demisemiquaver; it is surprising that this was not immediately re-recorded. The Vivace drives forward furiously, and the Lento is suitably reflective. Naturally, the Hagen make the ''Muss es sein?'' phrase, to the questioning figure which Beethoven thereby put into the musical vernacular, severe and demanding; so it is, but the anwer has a positive affirmation which does not exclude merriment. This is part of the music's capacity to move the listener so much.
About the Quartet's performance of Death and the Maiden there need be no reservations: this is one of the finest on record. The Hagen play the exposition with a strong sense of its complexity, and of the darkness which this density of invention reflects. It is, of course, at least as much development as exposition, and the Hagen very properly repeat it, then intelligently pressing the music forward in a constant increase in intensity (with the major-key suggestions throwing that into strong relief) right the way through the movement. They respond with real shock to the dreadful moment near the close (band 5, starting at 14'03'') when Schubert moves the music softly through a series of appalled discords, before driving matters home. This, in a performance of the present one's quality, properly prepares the way for the work's titular song. The death-like opening phrase is played steadily, with blanched tone and no vibrato, the viola exactly judged in counterpoint to the first violin. The mood is held through the variety of each variation played by no means as diversion but as an exploration of the theme's essence (which Beethoven would of course have admired). The scherzo resumes the sense of not-so-contained violence; and the Presto finale is taken at a dangerously fast pace. But it is not just played for easy excitement: this is alarming because it is so near the edge of what is possible, and yet it has just enough in reserve for a tremendous final prestissimo. Whatever the reservations about Op. 135, this is a Death and the Maiden for one's collection.'