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JANSMUSIC RECOMMENDED RECORDING

String quartets:  The English String Quartet
TREM 102-2
Edmund Rubbra: String Quartet No.2 in E flat major (1951); Phyllis Tate: String Quartet in F major (1953); Peter Wishart: String Quartet No.3 in A (1954)

All the quartets on this CD date from the 50s - and they are recorded chronologically.  I am new to all the works on this CD, as I am to both Wishart and Tate full stop.  The English String Quartet play with passion and vigour - very occasionally their tuning is a little wayward, but this is a minor criticism. 

Although entitled Allegro moderato, the first movement of the Rubbra wends its way through various moods - there are some periods of gravity but these are soon washed away by the rather odd scherzo. Its title "scherzo polimetrico" deliberately tries to confuse, with its ambiguous rhythms and leaping phrases. The slow movement is sublime, beautifully played, making good use of the lower strings, and the lower registers of the upper instruments, and the shorter last movement returns to a slightly graver feel, but with some lovely dialogue between the instruments, and then warms up and sweeps you away.

The Tate is more like the Shostakovich of which I am so fond and quite different from the Rubbra. I like the angular lines and the chromaticism, and the quite intense bowing.  There are some lovely pizzicato phrases in the first movement. The slow movement comes second here and is quite eerie, opening with a rather disjointed viola melody, which then leads into a more neurotic style, with quite detached melodic entries from the various instruments, in a sparser texture, and the third movement is a rather wonderful spooky dance, sometimes graceful and sometimes spiky. The last movement begins more thoughtfully, is slower paced, and seems unsettled, before finding its way back to an allegro tempo which bounces along, with a really happy tune which keeps popping up.

And last but far from least is the three-movement quartet of Wishart's.  Another newcomer to me, this composer, we learn from the notes that he fought in WWII, afterwards studying with Nadia Boulanger.  His writing is much sparer and one feels he knows exactly what he wants to say, with every note perfectly placed. While it is tonal writing, I can the Stravinskian influence also mentioned in the booklet.  I think this is my favourite of the three. The first movement is rhythmic and veers between the dramatic and the lyrical; the second movement is reflective, measured, careful in its thought processes and occasionally rhythmic; and the third movement is full of energy, and is just beautiful. I can't recommend this CD highly enough.