The Lindsays muster sufficient drive to launch Op. 95’s dramatic opening and maintain its momentum. Of course, Beethoven’s arresting first movement cannot fail to stimulate the senses, but listen to the Emerson Quartet, whose near-manic obsession with rhythmic exactitude provides a far more enthralling experience. By comparison, the Lindsays present a softer edge despite the considerable energy they put into their performance. They also are less incisive when it comes to intonation, something made readily apparent in the lyrical second subject, where the first violin never quite achieves harmonic convergence with the other instruments. Pretty much the same mixture of interesting and so-so prevails in the remaining movements.
Where Op. 95 was slightly disappointing, Op. 127 proves downright annoying. After their richly sonorous, boldly projected opening chords (presented with remarkable clarity and fullness by ASV’s close-perspective recording), the Lindsays offer a suitably lively if not particularly memorable rendition of the Allegro. Although the following Adagio admittedly is one of Beethoven’s more subdued and discursive theme-and-variations movements, the Lindsays’ playing is so devoid of color and dynamic energy that it seems endless.
After this the dancing scherzo comes as a welcome relief–but then the finale completely misfires. The entire movement is afflicted by a debilitating rhythmic slackness and restrained dynamics that render Beethoven’s great strumming passage nearly inert. As if this weren’t enough, the coda, which is supposed to sound translucent and ethereal (it does with the Emersons), here sounds clogged, clotted, and decidedly earthbound. A most unimpressive conclusion to an unimpressive disc. Stick with the alternatives.
