META4 has a cool name, and they play standing up (except, presumably, the cellist), a fact that may in part account for the free, improvisatory quality that they bring to these performances. You can hear this very clearly in the opening of Quartet No. 1, or in the second-movement Allegro of the F minor quartet (No. 2)–note the evocative treatment of silence, the little hesitations and conversational pauses that lend character but never (or almost never) break the rhythm. Yes, there are some miscalculations: the first movement of No. 3 is not Vivace assai, and the same quartet’s Adagio starts too loudly. Occasionally, phrases seem to dribble off into nothingness rather than cadencing cleanly–check out the conclusion of Quartet No. 2.
However, both the good and the bad are ruined by some of the ugliest, most unpleasant recorded sound ever afforded a string quartet. I’m going to discount the possibility that the group really sounds this harsh and wiry in real life. Haydn actually benefits from a certain leanness, but there’s a big difference between that, and a judicious handling of vibrato, and the sort of engineering hell on display here. The sound is asthmatically tight, capturing the players’ breathing as much as their tone, and leveling dynamics in a way that causes aural fatigue in just a few minutes. A shame. Hopefully META4’s next outing will be better.
