Less than a year after the Lutosławski Quartet released its recording of Grażyna Bacewicz’s seven quartets on Naxos, here is a rival from the Silesian Quartet at a similar price. Which to choose? The most striking difference is speed: the Silesians knock minutes off the run times of each quartet compared to the Lutosławskis, and their default playing style is springy and fleet-footed, bringing out the idiomatic nature of Bacewicz’s string writing. Unlike the Lutosławskis, they stick to chronological order, which makes for a first disc that is perhaps too genial and dance-like, albeit with some darker moments; the second, which includes the substantial fifth and the lean, sometimes eerie Nos 6 and 7 from the 1960s, is more varied. In the end the Lutosławskis’ weightier reading is perhaps the more satisfying, but the Silesians’ version is highly persuasive too, and it is good to hear these works interpreted differently.
