Richard Strauss's only quartet was written when he was a teenager, at a time when his knowledge of music was confined to the classics. The innocent ear might imagine it was composed by Mendelssohn or even young Beethoven on an off day. The outer movements are written in all-too-strict sonata form, the Scherzo is appealing in a Mendelssohnian way and the Andante cantabile, not much liked by commentators, seems to me the most attractive and heartfelt movement. The performance by the Delme is both accomplished and committed with the four strings finely balanced and, individually, full of character and brio. The work couldn't ask for better advocacy.
The Verdi, which seems to be appealing to more and more groups, receives another confident reading but not one that eclipses the merits of the others listed above. I am troubled here by the excessive vibrato of the first violin and a slight edginess on her tone emphasized by the recording, a feature I know to be less intrusive in the concert hall. The performance is rather bigger in scale than its rivals, but here I don't think the group provides quite such an integrated sound as does the Accardo quartet on Dynamic/Pinnacle. The actual sound is for my liking too reverberant; I much prefer the more intimate acoustic on the Accardo disc. However, the coupling is a sensible one and in any case, if you want the Strauss, you have no alternative. Some may feel, as I do, that 53 minutes' music on a CD is beginning to seem short measure. There is an informative note by Richard Wigmore.'