Quite exceptional, this…and on many levels.
For one, the playing is superb, the biting attack of the Fifth Quartet's opening, its precision, energy and tempered rhythmic momentum, not to mention the accuracy of intonation throughout.
Everything tells, nothing sounds rushed.
Just as remarkable are the gentler episodes in the two interrupted slow movements, barely sighing in the first, scarily building to a maelstrom in the second. Humour is a priority in the Scherzo, which wafts in quietly then, towards the end, after a sudden snap, scurries back into the night.
The finale often proves a stumbling block but not here, again strongly driven, the two madcap minuet episodes raising a smile, the first toying with atonalism (the timing here is crucially spoton), the other a dazed minuet. No doubt about it, this is one of the most impressive, the most human accounts of Bartók No 5 to have appeared for a long time.
Though merely five years old as an ensemble, the Arcanto Quartet have clocked up considerable pooled experience. And they didn't enter into quartet playing lightly, having previously tried out other instrumental formations.
What's for sure is that any internal disharmony would have surfaced in Bartók's fragile last quartet, another memorable performance.
Again, everything is well articulated, tiny motifs that otherwise go for nothing are made clear, curving glissandi shaped as if carefully planed and the haunting motif that prefaces each movement and dominates the last is sustained with maximum expressive intensity.
Echoes of folk music tail rarefied abstract invention, and the alternation of slapstick comedy and implied tragedy is underlined, though never too heavily. It's another winner, purposeful yet refined.

I know we're particularly well off for Bartók quartets on CD, but not so well off that interpretation of this calibre isn't also welcome.

Quite exceptional, this… and on many levels. For one, the playing superb, the biting attack of the Fifth Quartet's opening, its precision, energy and tempered rhythmic momentum, not to mention the accuracy of intonation throughout. Everything tells, nothing sounds rushed. ...in Bartók's fragile last quartet... everything is well articulated, tiny motifs that otherwise go for nothing are made clear, curving glissandi shaped as if carefully planed and the haunting motif that prefaces each movement and dominates the last is sustained with maximum expressive intensity.

The four players - violinists Antje Weithaas and Daniel Sepec, viola-player Tabea Zimmermann and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras - are established soloists in their own right, and they bring a soloist's personality and virtuosity to their
playing. This is one of those unions made in heaven.

Bartók's Fifth and Sixth String Quartets receive superb handling in the Arcanto Quartet's recording debut. Each member has a distinguished solo career, but they're ensemble stars too. Their precision is Godlike,
while their full-blooded spirit allows a delicate response to tone and phrasing. They're equally impressive driving an argument at white heat (the Fifth's first movement). And the recording acoustic is close, natural
and loving.