Ralph Vaughan Williams - Phantasy Quintet; String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 (Maggini Quartet)

Information

Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams

• Phantasy Quintet
• String Quartet No. 1 in G minor
• String Quartet No. 2 in A minor

Maggini Quartet

    Laurence Jackson, violin

    David Angel, violin

    Martin Outram, viola

    Michal Kaznowski, cello

&

Garfield Jackson, viola

Date: 2001

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.555300

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

Why is Vaughan Williams’s Second Quartet not part of the international chamber repertory? Played as eloquently as this it seems unarguably a masterpiece, and a masterpiece specifically of its time: 1942/43. Its first movement and deeply fraught Scherzo are as troubled as Shostakovich (whose music at moments, like a sudden stab of violence in that first allegro, it passingly resembles), while the misleadingly titled slow ‘Romance’ is haunted and haunting. It is tranquil but not at peace. It achieves an impassioned nobility and approaches serenity at the end, but something ghostly (it walks again in the Epilogue to the Sixth Symphony) refuses to be exorcised until the beautiful calm finale.

What these players do with the two much earlier and supposedly ‘immature’ pieces is no less remarkable. In them Vaughan Williams’s style is audibly emerging from the influences (notably Ravel, briefly his teacher) that helped form it. In the First Quartet’s opening movement an arching, lyrical melody that sounds like Vaughan Williams speaking with a French accent (and is it a French lark that ascends a little later?) has shed the accent by its return; something similar happens in the finale. But it was not an immature composer (he was 36, after all) who in the slow movement recognised a kinship with Faure. And the Phantasy Quintet is audibly by the composer of the Tallis Fantasia, grateful to Ravel for giving him access to a deft rhythmic flexibility, but exploring his own unmistakable territory in the serenity tinged with poignancy of the slow movement. The Maggini Quartet and Garfield Jackson clearly love this music deeply; they play it with great beauty of tone and variety of colour and with passionate expressiveness. The ample recording allows both grand gestures and quiet intimacy. A coupling to confirm, if you have ever doubted, that Vaughan Williams was a great composer

-- Michael Oliver, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 8 / SOUND QUALITY: 8

https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/july01/rvwquartet.htm

https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/jan02/rvwq.htm

https://www.naxos.com/Review/Detail/?catalogueid=8.555300&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.com/Vaughan-Williams-Phantasy-Quintet-Quartets/dp/B00005AQNF

-----------------------------------------------------------

Ralph Vaughan Williams (12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His compositional teachers included Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music in London, Max Bruch in Berlin, and Maurice Ravel in Paris. Vaughan Williams' works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams

***

The Maggini Quartet, formed in 1988, is known for championing the British repertoire, and has made many CD recordings published through publishers such as Naxos Records. The Maggini Quartet appear regularly in concert series at home and abroad and are frequent media broadcasters. Among other notable projects, they have recorded the complete Naxos Quartets cycle by Peter Maxwell Davies. The Quartet's name derives from the famous 16th century Brescian violin maker Giovanni Paolo Maggini. Its members are Julian Leaper (Violin 1), Ciaran McCabe (Violin 2), Martin Outram (Viola) and Will Schofield (Cello).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggini_Quartet

https://maggini.net/

-----------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!