The Lindsays eclipse all comers in range of colour, vital, creative phrasing and emotional penetration.
They respond gleefully to the subversive comedy that pervades each of the three works – most overtly in the Slavonic-influenced finale of The Bird (No 3), and in the outrageous Scherzo of No 5, where with explosive sforzandos and sly touches of timing they relish to the full Haydn's rhythmic and dynamic mayhem. But time and again in this music wit is suddenly suffused with poetry; and they bring a glancing delicacy and grace of interplay to, say, the startling tonal deflexions in the opening Vivace assai of No 6. With their slower-than-usual tempo and wonderfully tender, contained sotto voce, the second movement of No 3, where Haydn transmutes the Minuet-scherzo into a hymn, becomes the expressive core of the quartet. The Lindsays constantly provoke you to respond afresh to Haydn; to his wit, comic exuberance and his often unsuspected profundity.

With this latest disc in their Haydn series the Lindsays complete what for my money is now the most desirable set of Op.33 in the catalogue