Vaughan Williams & Holst: String Quartets Tippett Quartet

• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958): String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor:
• 1 Williams: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: I. Prelude. Allegro appassionato 04:08
• 2 Williams: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: II. Romance. Largo 08:45
• 3 Williams: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: III. Scherzo. Allegro 03:39
• 4 Williams: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: IV. Epilogue. Andante sostenuto 03:59
• Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934): Phantasy Quartet on British Folk Songs, H. 135 (Ed. R. Swanston):
• 5 Holst: Phantasy Quartet on British Folk Songs, H. 135 (Ed. R. Swanston) 10:12
• String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor:
• 6 Williams: String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor: I. Allegro moderato 09:19
• 7 Williams: String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor: II. Minuet 04:20
• 8 Williams: String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor: III. Romance. Andante sostenuto 07:27
• 9 Williams: String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor: IV. Finale. Rondo capriccioso 07:41
• Total Runtime 59:30

Info for Vaughan Williams & Holst: String Quartets

SOMM Recordings celebrates the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s birth with insightful, deeply felt accounts of his String Quartets Nos.1 and 2, coupled with Gustav Holst’s Phantasy Quartet, by the Tippett Quartet. This major release sheds new light on one of the enduring friendships of 20th-century British music, Vaughan Williams and Holst having first met at the Royal College of Music in 1895. Vaughan Williams’ early interest in chamber music was fired by lessons with Max Bruch and Maurice Ravel, which prompted his String Quartet No.1 in G minor in 1908, later revised in 1922. It reveals Vaughan Williams, as Robert Matthew-Walker’s authoritative booklet notes suggest, “at his subtlest and most varied: lively, intense and rhythmically delightful… Nothing quite like this had appeared in English chamber-music up to that time”. His last but one chamber work, the A minor String Quartet No.2 (dedicated to Jean Stewart, violist of the Menges Quartet who gave its premiere in October 1944) gives prominence to the viola. Coloured by wartime experience, it is a work of “turbulence and angst… an unemotional contemplation of bleak vistas” that movingly gives way to consoling serenity. Holst’s attractive Phantasy Quartet from 1917, heard here in Roderick Swanston’s edition commissioned by the Tippett Quartet who gave its first performance on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune, is based on four British folk-songs and offers “easy-going charm as well as much playfulness and warmth”. The release continues the Tippett Quartet’s championing of British chamber music on SOMM, most recently with Dedication which focused on Ruth Gipps’ clarinet-led music (SOMMCD 0641) and was “recommended” by Gramophone. Their coupling of string quartets by William Alwyn and Doreen Carwithen (SOMMCD 0194) merited a five-star BBC Music Magazine review and was praised by The Strad for its “radiant insight and affection… utterly captivating”.

Tippett Quartet:
John Mills, violin
Jeremy Isaac, violin
Lydia Lowndes-Northcott, viola
Bozidar Vukotic, cello

Tippett Quartet
For over a decade and a half, the celebrated Tippett Quartet has delighted critics and audiences alike with its animated, virtuosic performances and it’s inspired and attractive programming. They have performed at the BBC Proms, Cheltenham Festival, Snape Proms and numerous festivals throughout the UK and abroad, including tours of Europe, Canada and Mexico. The quartet regularly appears at Kings Place, Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Bridgewater Hall and frequently performs on BBC Radio 3. Alongside a busy touring schedule, the Tippett Quartet pursues a keen interest in educational work with both schools and universities and was Ensemble in Residence at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University for 2012-13. In September 2015 they began an exciting new residency at Royal Holloway University, London.

Their broad and diverse repertoire highlights the Tippett Quartet’s unique versatility. They are equally at home with the giants of the classical world as they are with great Hollywood composers. Their impressive catalogue of over twenty releases have not only topped the classical charts but have also entered the pop charts and received universal critical acclaim. They have recorded for Naxos, EMI Classics, Signum, Classic FM, Guild, Real World, Dutton Epoch and Tocatta Classics. The quartet has given numerous world and UK premieres including works by John Adams, Howard Goodall and Stephen Dodgson. 2013 saw them rediscover Gustav Holst’s Fantasy on British Folk Songs which, with the help of the eminent musicologist Roderick Swanston, they were able to complete and give a world premiere on BBC Radio 3. They have also worked with Peter Maxwell-Davies for a performance of his 9th Quartet at the South Bank, with Anthony Payne on his Quartet No.1 for a live BBC broadcast from Spitalfields Festival, and Hugh Wood on his String Quartet No.3 at the Presteigne Festival.

They have had the great pleasure of collaborating with inspirational soloists such as Kathryn Stott, Craig Ogden, Stephanie Gonley, Lawrence Power, Melvin Tan, Nick Van Bloss, Julian Bliss and Ashley Wass. In 2011 they celebrated the anniversary of the iconic film composer Bernard Herrmann by commissioning an arrangement of Psycho and performing it alongside his clarinet quintet Souvenir de Voyages and Echoes in a series of concerts and radio broadcasts. They had the great pleasure of collaborating with Herrmann’s widow Norma Herrmann on many occasions.

The Tippett Quartet have also performed with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden and have premiered a newly written film score for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film classic The Lodger. In 2014 they started a collaboration with some of the UK’s finest Jazz musicians with the launch of their ‘Close To You’ project – a tribute to the album that Frank Sinatra made with the Hollywood String Quartet. In 2015 they are now continuing this collaboration with “Hollywood Romance” featuring singer and broadcaster Claire Martin OBE.

This album contains no booklet.