Scintilla – Early Italian String Quartets
Gaetano Pugnani (1731-1798)
String Quartet No. 2 in E-flat
Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)
String Quartet in C minor, Op. 2 No. 1
Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen (1745-1818)
String Quartet No. 5 in F
Felice Giardini (1716-1796)
String Quartet in C, Op. 25 No. 1
Butter Quartet
rec. 2022, Westvest90 Church, Schiedam, The Netherlands
Brilliant Classics 97407 [61]

My eyes light up and my hopes are raised when I see a new release like this with an imaginative approach and very unusual repertoire. I have nothing against the likes of Mozart and Haydn, but we’ve heard most of their stuff a million times now, so a beautifully recorded and performed selection of string quartets with only one composer people are likely to have heard of is a delightful prospect.

This promising start is fulfilled by the brand-new Butter Quartet, who started out as students at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in 2017, and who have clearly honed their skills and developed a distinctive style and sound evidenced by the musicianship on this recording. This is an ‘early music’ quartet in that they perform using gut strings and a historically informed approach, but I would hate it if this idea would put anyone off. Gut strings played well have a slightly rougher texture than modern strings but have all of the dynamic range you could ask for. These players use limited vibrato but do apply it to add expressive strength to particular notes where a certain emphasis is required, either dramatic or lyrically expressive. Their unity of sound and willingness to dig deep and project a sense of fun and vibrancy provides as good an account as I can imagine for these fine works.

All of these composers were renowned and internationally recognised violin virtuosi, with the exception of Boccherini, who was a cellist. The Italian galant style heard here has plenty of refinement and elegance as well as a good deal of playful wit and good humour, and often just enough Baroque astringency to add some toothsome expressiveness to harmonies and cadences. Some of the phrasing in Gaetano Pugnani’s Quartet in E flat major serves as a good example of this, while Boccherini’s choice of the key of C minor delivers moments of tristesse that would soon be picked up by the likes of Mozart and Beethoven. Maddalena Sirmen was a student of Tartini whose remarkable life story is summed up in the booklet for this release, and the deeply expressive passages in her String Quartet No. 5 in F are most certainly highlights in this programme. Felice Giardini as a representative of an older generation of composers has a slight transformation of sonority for his String Quartet in C, Op. 25 No. 1, where the players of the Butter Quartet move to baroque rather than classical bows. I suspect few will notice this change, so subtle is the effect. Based in London, Giardini’s Op. 25 was written for the Prince of Wales, who later became King George IV, and the enjoyment to be had from these pieces was also remarked upon by the painter Thomas Gainsborough, a friend of the composer.

If Haydn was to become “the father of the string quartet” then we need to remember that he adopted some children who were already developed well beyond infancy, as can clearly be heard on this excellent album. As the booklet notes state, these composers and their music “ignited centuries of string quartet composition” and that “also like sparks, they shine in their own right”. With this Scintilla we have a recording that should be acquired by everyone with an affection for this genre.

Dominy Clements

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