Recorded 22-23 June 2005 (Quartet No. 5) and 22-24 November 2005 (Quartet No. 6) in Deventer, Netherlands, these last two of the six Bartok quartets hurl us into a world, or other-world, of the composer’s own, idiosyncratic design. Commentators have said of the 1935 Fifth Quartet that it is “the most expressive, the most perfectly balanced, the most violent.” Written in a modal form of B-flat, the piece exploits an arc or palindrome structure and a series of archaic scales, tritones, and minor third intervals. In the course of its five-movement progression, likely influenced by Beethoven’s late quartets (bedtime reading for Bartok, according to Waldbauer), there are two nocturnes, in D and G, that offer haunted fascination. The C sharp tonal center for the Scherzo–Alla burlesca movement resonates with disturbing tension, especially in the Trio section, when the cello (Michael Mueller) seems to come out of the wall like a aggressive spirit from Polanski’s Repulsion. Another series of eerily modal harmonies for the Andante, then we plunge into musical Kafka for the Allegro vivace–Presto finale, a vision rife with musical growls and shrieks, a descent into the abyss. Razor-sharp intonation in surround sound unleashes Bartok’s muscular furies and witty ironies on us, but we cannot plead that we were unprepared. That kooky little episode prior to the contrapuntal coda might be a hurdy-gurdy player on glue.
The key of D provides the tonal center for the Sixth Quartet (1939), whose agitated spirit captures the tenor of the time of its composition. The Mesto theme occurs in all the movements, a kind of ritornello which attaches to four movements of roughly the same playing time. The viola part (Ferdinand Erblich) is particularly rich, singing solo or in concert with the two violins. Beethoven’s Op. 131 seems nigh, but the emotions are here both rarified and countrified, a desolate sort of folk music. A wail in the night might characterize the second movement, at least until the polyphonic march kicks in, here shades of Beethoven’s Op. 132, but plagued by unholy repeated figures and the banshee first violin of Istvan Parkanyi. The cello part takes its cue from Debussy’s D Minor Sonata. For modernist audiophiles, this movement, with its other-worldly slides, is a sound-system showpiece! The Mesto–Burlesca movement opens as a tragic string trio with viola principal, then joined by the cello. The joke proper could have been penned by Shostakovich or Prokofiev, maybe Stravinsky, after they’d had a few. Great pizzicato work from all principals, again in surround, quirky motions from the Hall of the Mountain King. Gloom introspection, resignation–you can characterize the fervent intensities of the last Mesto to your own lights. Focused, immaculate playing by the Parkanyi Quartet in sterling sonics.
— Gary Lemco
