Rubbra: String Quartet No.2 in E flat, Op.73 (1951)

Allegro moderato – Adagio – Grave
Scherzo Polimetrico:- Vivace assai
Cavatina:- Adagio tranquillo
Allegro – Adagio

Edmund Rubbra was born in Northampton on May 23 1901, and by the age of fourteen had left school to work for the railways. However, he had already begun learning the piano (with his mother), and his enthusiasm for the music of Cyril Scott led to his being accepted by him as a pupil. He soon won scholarships to Reading University and to the Royal College of Music, where he completed his studies in both piano and composition in 1925. His first symphony did not appear until 1937, but over the next 42 years he was to complete a further ten – as perhaps the major landmarks in an enormously prolific composing career. He was also well known as the pianist in a trio with Erich Gruenberg and William Pleeth, as well as through his work as a lecturer at Oxford and composition tutor at the Guildhall School of Music.

The second quartet is generally regarded as one of the finest written by an Englishman, the result of a commission in 1950 from one of the greatest of all English string quartets, the Griller. They gave the first performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1952, and their recording was subsequently released by Decca on one of their earliest 10” LPs. The composer himself provided an extensive, characteristically erudite and analytical note – such that a score would be a considerable and necessary aid to its comprehension! His “detailed analysis of the four movements” is prefaced by the suggestion that “three main characteristics should be noted. First, although the quartet is specifically ‘in E flat’, this should be regarded as a reference point in the tonal argument rather than as a key in the classical sense. Second, the rhythmic weight is distributed without regard for bar-lines or beats which are there for convenience of reading and not for the giving of rhythmic clues. This fluidity of rhythm reaches its culminating point in the second movement (Scherzo polimetrico). Third, the prevalence in the texture of an inversion device, i.e., viewing the material from two different angles, gives a technical unity”. The next five paragraphs take some digesting! But at the end he at least allows himself a glimpse beyond such rigorous explanation of his compositional process by informing us that “The ending is tranquil”…… Such an understatement belies both the true character of a composer who speaks very much from the heart, as well as the true message of a work which, despite its high intellectual stance, can move us far more than we are actually aware of.

The FSQ’s friendship with the Rubbra family goes back to the early 1990s, yet we felt deeply honoured when the composer’s son, the artist Benedict Rubbra, invited us to play at a retrospective exhibition of his work in Aylesbury Art Gallery on his father’s birthday, May 23 1998. Naturally we included a Rubbra quartet; and naturally it was the one written specially for Sidney Griller, our mentor. It was a particularly poignant experience to rehearse this work at Ben’s home – the very house in the Chilterns where it was composed, and where the Griller Quartet worked at it with Rubbra himself. We have since been fortunate that his other son, Adrian, has responded to our realisations of his father’s music with such generosity.

© Alan George
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