"The Kodaly Quartet are fully worthy of the composer's inexhaustible invention and make a splendid bargain recommendation. Their playing brings joyful pleasure in Haydn's inspiration and there is not the slightest suspicion of over-rehearsal or of routine: every bar of the music springs to life spontaneously, and these musicians' insights bring an ideal combination of authority and warmth, emotional balance and structural awareness."
As the Naxos Beethoven Quartet cycle heads toward completion, the Kodály Quartet turns in some of its finest playing to date. Particularly impressive in the E-flat Op. 127 quartet, the four players spin out the second movement variations with pliant lyricism, effecting gorgeously shaded dynamic contrasts in the Scherzando Vivace. The Kodálys may not plunge into the Op. 59's opening Allegro with the virtuosic confidence marking the Alban Berg Quartett's EMI studio version, or the better-recorded Alexander Quartet (Arte Nova); on the other hand, I like the dark charm they bring to the Minuet movement. The fugal finale is taken slightly under Beethoven's all-but-impossible metronome indication. While the music's dangerous edge is compromised, the results gain in linear clarity and uplifting momentum. An attractive coupling, all told, and worth much more than its bargain price. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
