CLASSICAL MUSIC Carmina Quartet plays Beethoven Wigmore Hall, London

With four down and still two to go, the Wigmore Hall's survey of the complete Beethoven string quartets is proving something of a showcase for top-ranking chamber ensembles. Saturday night was the turn of the prize-winning, Zurich-based Carmina Quartet, whose performances have won accolades worldwide and whose slim but significant discography (on Denon) is regularly well reviewed. Listening to the Carmina's blended, colour- conscious and decidedly stylised playing reminded me that their past mentors have included Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Sandor Vegh.

Beethoven's first string quartet, the so-called No 3 in D major, took the light gradually, having opened more on a sigh than on a smile. Leader Matthias Enderie would lean into a phrase and prompt a like response from his colleagues, while occasional punctuation - ie, the odd hesitation or curve -in the musical line helped dissipate tension (as opposed to intensity, of which there was plenty).

Like the Hagen Quartet, whom we heard earlier on in the series, the Carminas favour strongly attenuated phrasing, though their tonal profile is warmer, softer-grained and notably less aggressive. One colleague suggested similarities with the Italian Quartet, though time and again my memory-bank made reference, not to another string quartet, but to Harnoncourt's Beethoven recordings with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The connection was initially sparked off by a swaying Andante con moto and some especially curvaceous phrase- shaping in the third movement Allegro.

I found the first movement of Op 59 No 3 (in C major - the third of the so-called "Razumovsky" Quartets) lacking in gusto: "Too much fuss and not enough fibre," I thought, although tone production was as suave as ever and dynamics hopped restlessly between workable extremes. The Slavic- sounding second movement, with its pulsing cello pizzicato and wailing violin melody, was tastefully understated, the Menuetto graceful but a little hurried, and the fugal finale breathtaking. As ever, the Carminas exhibited great finesse, exceptional ease of execution and a notable level of musicality. But spirit? Come the great A minor Quartet and the "Heiliger Dankgesang" (thanksgiving after recovery from an illness) that sits at its core, I started to have doubts.

The first movement forged forwards in breathless bursts of colour but, as an interpretation, seemed oddly unstructured; the twirling-ivy Allegro ma non tanto was uncharacteristically unsubtle (although the trio was beautifully done), and the Molto Adagio left me stone cold. Granted that Beethoven's writing makes use of an ancient musical mode, but that doesn't mean it should be played like a Purcell Fantasia on period instruments. Even the exultant second theme - where, metaphorically speaking, the windows fly open and the sick-room floods with sunlight - sounded chirpy and superficial. Of course, some quartets opt for an equally inappropriate "holy aura", but this sounded like musical revisionism gone mad.

The rest went very well - quite up to standard, in fact. What's more, the packed hall's enthusiastic applause suggested that mine may well have been a minority response.