William Walton - Piano Quartet; String Quartet (Maggini Quartet; Peter Donohoe)

Information

Composer: William Walton

• String Quartet in A minor
• Piano Quartet in D minor

Maggini Quartet

    Laurence Jackson, violin

    David Angel, violin

    Martin Outram, viola

    Michal Kaznowski, cello

&

Peter Donohoe, piano

Date: 2000

Label: Naxos

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Review

This disc of chamber music provides a splendid follow-up to the fine orchestral recordings already included in Naxos’s Walton series. The young players of the Maggini Quartet – who earlier recorded Britten, Elgar and Moeran for Naxos – give refined and powerful performances of both works. The opening of the 1947 String Quartet is presented in hushed intimacy, making the contrast all the greater when Walton’s richly lyrical writing emerges in full power. There is a tender, wistful quality here, which culminates in a rapt, intense account of the slow movement, where the world of late Beethoven comes much closer than most interpreters have appreciated. The poignancy of those two longer movements is then set against the clean bite of the second movement Scherzo and the brief hectic finale, with their clear and transparent textures. This is as fine a version as any – and like others in the series a splendid bargain, beautifully recorded.

With Peter Donohoe a powerful and incisive presence, and the Maggini Quartet again playing most persuasively, the early Piano Quartet – an astonishing achievement for a teenage composer – is also given a performance of high contrasts, enhanced by a refined recording which conveys genuine pianissimos that are free from highlighting. If, in the first three movements, the pentatonic writing gives little idea of the mature Walton to come, some characteristic rhythmic and other devices are already apparent. Even the pentatonicry suggests that the boy had been looking at the Howells Piano Quartet rather than any Vaughan Williams. It is in the finale that one gets the strongest Waltonian flavour in vigorously purposeful argument, though there the echoes are different, and Stravinsky’s Petrushka is an obvious influence. The only reservation is that, refined as the recording is, the piano is rather too forwardly balanced.

— Edward Greenfield

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William Walton (29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation marches Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre. Walton was a slow worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be frequently performed in the 21st century, and by 2010 almost all his works had been released on CD.

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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).

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Peter Donohoe (born 18 June 1953) is an English pianist. He studied at Chetham's School of Music, University of Leeds and the Royal Northern College of Music, and later with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. Donohoe has performed internationally with major orchestras and appeared at leading venues and festivals, including the BBC Proms. In addition to extensive touring, he is a respected jury member at prominent piano competitions such as the Tchaikovsky and the Queen Elisabeth competitions. He has also produced acclaimed recordings, including Mozart piano sonatas and works by Haydn, Grieg and Busoni.

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