two things: 1) this might be one of the worst album covers I've ever seen, and
2) one reviewer whom I really respect wrote,
>Two roads diverge in the woods leading to Beethoven's quartets: pre-Emerson and post-Emerson. Pre-Emerson every ensemble expressed the Romantic performance tradition in which Beethoven was a profound, existential composer whose expression afforded limitless exploration - music of the soul, in a word. This mode of interpretation reached its height in the Busch and Budapest Qt. Post-Emerson, a modernist revision set in, stripped of Romantic "depth," with a new focus on speed, precision, and objectivity. I'm giving a simple schematic picture, but there's no doubt that the Emersons' complete Beethoven cycle on DG was a watershed.

I absolutely see what they're talking about, but is the Emerson cycle actually the catalyst? That seems quite the attribution.

adagio from the 12th to enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HITbKklyv9M&list=OLAK5uy_mfkL9q86TyeskCYbjpkSG9HYn5RbM2fz8&index=7