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The Haydn performances of the Chiaroscuro Quartet are not the first ones to have had a historical orientation (gut strings, period bows, heavily restricted vibrato), but the group perhaps takes the possibilities of the authentic performance group further than others have. True to the ensemble's name, the players employ the percussive attacks and the edgy high register to produce big contrasts, seeing in these late Haydn works not a mature summing-up of his career but a restless exploration of new realms. Listeners who want a dose of gentility from their Haydn may wish to sample carefully here. The set of variations in Op. 76, No. 3 containing the tune that became the Austrian national hymn may lack a certain level of sentiment, but the Chiaroscuro has absolutely no problem creating a distinctive group of Op. 76 quartets among all of the dozens of versions of these pieces on the market. The key to the success of the group's performances is that they do not lose Haydn's humor even as they amp up the energy. This is the quality without which a Haydn quartet performance cannot survive, and it is here in abundance in passages like that involving the lone high note in the finale of the String Quartet in D minor, Op. 76, No. 2. That quartet, with its Andante that sounds like a minuet and its stormy actual minuet, is especially suited to the Chiaroscuro's sound, but the whole thing is absorbing and is enhanced by fine Sendesaal Bremen sound. 

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