The three currently available sets of Schoenberg's string quartets represent three quite different styles of interpretation. Weighing the profit-and-loss account between them is a fascinating exercise, but they are not strictly comparable as recordings: the sound quality of the Kolisch performances, made in 1936, is primitive, while the LaSalle reissues are part of their larger, four-disc set of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. In one sense, then, the Arditti Quartet have the field to themselves, though even they can't expect to drive all memory of other performances from the listener's mind.
The recordings were made in London, in collaboration with the BBC, and the sound is consistently spacious, with a natural clarity and an even balance; the details of Schoenberg's complex counterpoint, as evident in No. 1 as in No. 4, can be heard with a minimum of stress and strain. DG's LaSalle recordings have a closer balance and narrower perspective, underlining the vitality and expressive immediacy of the playing. Yet while comparison of short extracts might suggest that the Arditti are relatively cool in their response to this often fervent music, the overall impression they create is far from anti-romantic, and they call on a remarkably wide range of dynamics and tone-colours. Even if every nuance in Schoenberg's markings is not followed, this is warmly expressive playing, and not for a moment do you suspect that they would rather be recording Carter or Ferneyhough.
Dawn Upshaw's contribution to the Second Quartet also helps to heighten the sense of drama. Here it is Margaret Price and the LaSalle who seem more detached, though Upshaw misses some of that mysterious, ecstatic quality which makes this music so haunting. In fact, for an unambiguously romantic reading of the two early quartets you need to brave the grinding surface noise of the marvellously vibrant Kolisch performances.
It is in the Third and Fourth Quartets that the superior sound-quality of the Auvidis Montaigne issue pays the greatest dividends. Textural clarity is vital here, and although even the Arditti struggle to sustain the necessary lightness in the long second movement of No. 4, their wider dynamic range brings you consistently close to the toughly argued, emotionally expansive essence of this music. Yet the performance of No. 3 is, for me, the finest achievement of the set: clarity of form and emotional conviction combine to create an absorbing account of a modern masterwork. It sets the seal on a most distinguished enterprise.'