Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
String Quartet in C minor (1898)
String Quartet No 1 in G minor (1908)
String Quartet No 2 in A minor ‘For Jean on her Birthday’ (1942-1943)
Verdi Quartett
rec. 2017, WDR Klaus-von-Bismarck Saal, Cologne, Germany
cpo 555 345-2 [79]
For all the riches and diversity of the excellent cpo catalogue, it cannot be said that British music has featured much. Even so, it is good to be able to welcome this generous compilation of Vaughan Williams’s three string quartets. They are played here by the Verdi Quartett, who formed in 1985 and disbanded in 2021. This recording has been in the cpo vaults since 2017.
Vaughan Williams published two string quartets in his lifetime: No.1 in G minor and No.2 in A minor ‘For Jean on her Birthday’. The advent of compact disc meant that these two alone would make for a rather short playing time, so at least one filler would be added. The Magginis on Naxos and the Medicis on Nimbus included the wonderful Phantasy Quintet. The Tippets on SOMM (review) offered Holst’s rare and unusual – but not actually very good! – Phantasy on British Folksongs Op.36. There were two other notable individual recordings on EMI. The Britten Quartet recorded a stunning No.1 alongside Ravel’s quartet and Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge. Hugh Bean’s Music Group of London combined No.2with the Phantasy Quintet and the Violin Sonata.
Those are all impressive and insightful interpretations, but there is particular interest in this disc. The inclusion of the student String Quartet in C minor is an intelligent and interesting coupling. This is the least recorded and least well-known of Vaughan Williams’s quartets. As far as I know, the only other commercial recording – and a very good one it is too – was part of the Nash Ensemble’s two-disc survey on Hyperion of the early chamber music. Also, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first such survey not by a British ensemble, so they can, I presume, approach this music without the burden of stylistic familiarity and performing precedent.
Sensibly, the quartets are presented in chronological order. Even on a first and superficial listen, there is a major stylistic leap forward from the undigested influences of the C minor quartet of 1898 to the lessons with Ravel that led to still work-in-progress but emerging authentic voice of 1908. Jump forward more than three decades, and the second numbered quartet reveals the mature composer who writes with complete clarity of intention and focussed goals.
Such is the superlative standard of quartet playing today that, to be brutally honest, the Verdi Quartett – clearly fine players collectively and individually as they are – are not quite at the same level as the members of any of the groups mentioned earlier. Leader Susanne Rabenschlag negotiates the many tricky corners of these scores well but somehow in a slightly literal way which misses the element of fantasy and freedom that Vaughan Williams found. As the least individual work – although it does contain tantalising pre-echoes of music to come – the early C minor quartet comes off best, albeit in a slightly earnest manner. Direct comparison with the Nash Ensemble’s recording shows that the Verdi Quartett is weightier in every movement except for the third movement Intermezzo. The Nash find a playfulness in their basic tempo for the opening Allegro that I find more convincing than the studied Verdi. The actual sound the Verdi make can be very good. The solo viola that opens the second movement Andantino is a case in point in simple technical terms. But listening to the more atmospherically hushed Nash takes the expressive aspect of the music to another, more intriguing, level.
The sense that these performances are interpretatively ‘less’ niggles a little in the early quartet. By the time the more familiar and often recorded works are reached, it becomes a more significant factor. I found myself thinking about the “marginal gains” so beloved of sports coaches, and how, or if, it can apply to music. All of these players, including the Verdi Quartett, are members of the music-making elite. Any performance heard in isolation will give pleasure because the playing is very good and the music is great. But the sense of cumulative, memorable effect rests with those performances in which marginally the playing is more expressive or more rhythmically alert or more judicious in the relationships between tempi, or generally freer.
I would refer readers to my review of the Tippets’ recording for an overview of my preferred current versions. This disc does not challenge those conclusions, and indeed it would not displace any of the previous versions. Not that it is not accomplished technically but it simply tells the listener little if anything new or different about the intent behind the notes. This missing element is most apparent in the later No.2. None of these quartets are easy to play in pure technical terms. Relatively speaking, No.2 is easier, but it did strike me that the Verdi Quartett do not really make sense of the slow movement Romanza or the closing Epilogue Andante.
The chilled landscape of the Romanza, directed to be played senza vibrato, is an interpretative challenge. The Magginis navigate it triumphantly but the Verdis just meander through, slightly tentatively, and this despite playing the movement quicker than any of the other groups. The same is true of the Epilogue. Here, it feels “just” slow and quiet, and it ultimately lacks purpose or direction, stopping without any sense of arrival. In other hands, Vaughan Williams achieves that sense of ultimate belief in a better future that made so much of his greatest work compellingly about faith but not religion. The close proximity in composing terms of his Symphony No.5 results in parallels of intent that are as fascinating as the results are different.
In the end, this is one of those curious discs where nothing could possibly be described as anything except at least competent. The playing time is generous, the coupling intelligent, indeed useful for the listener. But once one has accepted that the technical execution is good, the interpretations never get beyond the superficial, and I prefer every other version I know.
I had high hopes for this disc, and really wanted to like it a lot. Vaughan Williams’s music is not parochial or limited in its appeal; at the same time, greater insights bring greater rewards. It is a shame that the Verdi Quartett made the considerable effort to begin the journey of discovery into this wonderful music, and then have disbanded. So, these performances will remain their first and only thoughts.
Nick Barnard
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