Hyperion Records

The Fourth Quartet is an astounding compendium of Bartók’s art. In structure and texture, in its masterly transformation of organic material, and in much else besides, it stands with its three precursors as a work of genius: utterly new and equally different, the composer was nonetheless correct in emphasizing its traditional lines, which in the Third derived from older, primitive, structures.

from notes by Robert Matthew-Walker © 1996