Here is a richly recorded account of the last three quartets from the set of six that Haydn published in 1797. The Takacs Quartet's performance of the preceding three disappointed my colleague HF (9/88), I have not heard it, but can offer a much warmer welcome to the new issue. The ensemble is Hungarian and relatively youthful and they bring to this music a joyful directness that is entirely refreshing and in no way inhibits them from the necessary sufficient underlining of this point or lingering over that. Consequently the Sunrise Quartet, Op. 76 No. 4, is invigorating in the first movement whose spacious opening earned it its nickname, and lyrically broad yet delicate in the Adagio, while Haydn is no less himself in the wittily syncopated minuet and lilting finale.
With the D major Quartet, Op. 76 No. 5, one is made to wonder for the umpteenth time at Haydn's inexhaustible inventiveness: it starts with an Allegretto suggesting a set of variations but then moves into a startling section in B flat major and D minor before ending with a brisk coda. And what other quartet composer of this time would write the F two octaves above the fifth line of the treble clef for his first violin? The Largo is in F sharp major (!) and its cantabile e mesto (sad) marking is fully realized, as is the major-minor contrast of the minuet; and the finale which begins with an unmistakable joke of six bars that sound like the end of a movement, is taken at a true Presto and a delight of sheer playfulness.
The third of these quartets begins with another unusually shaped movement, variations that culminate in a fugato. The slow movement—in B major this time—is another original, and actually has the title of Fantasia, and this is followed not by a minuet but by a real scherzo (and what wit here, too) and then a finale in which fragments of scales participate in a game of dizzy contrapuntal complexity. The recording is immediate yet atmospheric, with a touch of glare that tone and volume controls will tame. Overall this is an issue to be strongly recommended.'