Haydn: Sun Quartets, Op 20 Nos 4-6 CD review – immaculate and spirited

Chiaroscuro Quartet
(BIS) These quartets don’t do what they should. Haydn mucks about with phrase lengths, harmonies and hierarchies – or rather he sets a new standard for the kind of daring and rogue vision with which every subsequent composer of string quartets has had to reckon. A potential danger for performers is overegging all that boldness, to signpost the surprises, to make the shock factor sound gaudy. Although big contrast is written into the Chiaroscuro name – and wi