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John McCabe and Peter Dickinson String Quartet premieres
Classical Music At Wilton's: The Kreutzer Quartet Bartok and Sibelius both revolutionised quartet writing in totally distinctive ways, whilst carrying on dialogues with the works of Beethoven - tonight's concert presented two of the spectacular results alongside two important premieres. A fine concert, very much one in two halves, with the Kreutzers at the top of their game. Bartok No 3, played straight through without pause, was quite a cliff-hanger, the concentration of the players making for a comparably intense listening experience. Following it immediately with the first London hearing of McCabe's dense clarinet quintet made for a tiring pairing, perhaps exhausting for the players too. Impressve idiomatic accounts of both works, with a fine clarinettist joining the quartet. For the second half I moved from the third row to the very back, with a marked improvement in the sound, especially receiving there more of the resonance which is a feature of Wilton's and enhances the music (Peter Sheppard Skærved alluded to its importance in his virtuoso pre-concert talk, with special reference to the Dickinson's concise 1st quartet (1958/2010) - there is a second, Str Qt no.2, with tape/pf, 1975 - also benefited from hearing less close. It is a delightful work in three concise movements (I could have done with a fourth !) scored with transparency and a lot of 'air'. It is good to know that the whole concert was being recorded by OpticNerve. I particularly look forward to getting to grips with the McCabe whilst refreshing my memories of a special Sunday afternoon in one of London's most sympathetic, informal environments for chamber music, where it was possible to talk with three major composers, the two featured today, plus David Matthews, all of whose quartets are being recorded by the Kreutzers. Peter Grahame Woolf Mozart String Quintet No.1 in B-flat major, K.174
Adagio K 411
String Quintet No.6 in E-flat major, K.614
An enjoyable Mainly Mozart recital, before which Peter Sheppard Skæved described the different ways in which Mozart integrated two violas into his six quintets, before we heard two of the less famous ones, with different set-ups on stage. Mihailo Trandafilovski's new short, slow piece for clarinet and string quartet, with its inscrutable title and which featured "freeze pauses", was hard to grasp at a first hearing. PGW
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significance of Sibelius' rests.). As Peter S-S explained, Bartok and Sibelius both revolutionised quartet writing in totally distinctive ways, whilst carrying on dialogues with the works of Beethoven with spectacular results.
