Hungarian Quartet, Laszlo Varga - Schubert: String Quartets 13-15, String Quintet (2003)

While these recordings by the Hungarian Quartet contain perfectly acceptable performances and adequately idiomatic interpretations of Schubert's later chamber music for string quartet and quintet, they contain nothing more than that. In the late '50s and early '60s, the Hungarian Quartet was a widely respected group playing in the central European tradition of plumy intonation, sugary sonorities, sometimes scrappy ensemble, and often sentimental interpretations. But acceptable and adequate may not be exactly what is wanted in Schubert's later chamber music. In the A minor, Schubert sings of life and love and loss. In the String Quartet D minor, Schubert propounds the mysteries of death and dying. In the G major, Schubert explores the boundary between agony and ecstasy. In the String Quartet in C major, Schubert goes beyond agony and ecstasy and love and death to live in a world of sublimated emotions and sublime sounds. And the Hungarian's sugary sentiment just does not cut it. EMI's stereo sound is more than adequate, but less than acceptable.