The Lindsays - Haydn: String Quartets Op. 64 Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (2001)

The interpretative temperature of these performances is, as one would expect from The Lindsays, consistently high. So expressively alert, they bring a sense of purpose to every note: sforzandos are arresting and powerful, faster movements are high on adrenalin. Above all, The Lindsays are surely hard to surpass in their delivery of Haydn's slow movements. In the Adagio of No. 2 they sustain a rapturous atmosphere, and that of No. 3 is also wonderfully elevated. There is intense concentration, yet also a directness and warmth that will captivate every listener. Strangely less persuasive, though, is their Allegretto 'slow movement' in No. 1: there must be more delicacy to the humour than this rather broad approach would allow. The sense of commitment and character is strengthened by the relatively close and dry recorded sound. This also exposes, though, a tendency for tone and tuning to suffer under the pressure of the interpretative moment. Caution is simply not part of the way The Lindsays make music, but might they sometimes have been more self-critical? The outer movements of No. 1 bring some lack of rhythmic poise, given the tendency to accelerate through animated passages. A certain skittishness seems just right in the former, but the swallowing of beats in the finale detracts from the excitement. The sustained aggressiveness of the B minor finale cannot really accommodate the fade-out ending. A more whimsical version from the Angeles Quartet makes better sense of this concluding surprise.The Angeles, more warmly recorded, are certainly superior in the traditional quartet virtues of balance and blend, but honours are pretty even when I consider my reactions to the accounts of individual movements. I find both groups relatively disappointing in the outer movements of No. 3; more could be done with the timing of the galloping motive in the first movement as well as the strangely stuttering chord sequences in the finale. But no one could be disappointed with the best of The Lindsays' performances here: put on those slow movements and surrender yourself. W. Dean Sutcliffe