Brian BOYDELL (1917-2000)
The Complete String Quartets
String Quartet no. 1, op. 31 (1949) [23:15]
String Quartet no. 2, op. 44 (1957) [14:10]
String Quartet no. 3, op. 65 (1969) [18:14]
Adagio and Scherzo for String Quartet, op. 89 (1991) [8:49]
Carducci Quartet (Matthew Denton (violin); Michelle Fleming (violin); Eoin
Schmidt-Martin (viola); Emma Denton (cello)) rec. Highnam church, Gloucestershire,
UK. 2008. DDD
CARDUCCI CLASSICS CSQ 8841 [64:28]
http://www.carducciquartet.co.uk/index.html
The Carducci Quartet have a pretty adventurous pedigree witness their catalogue:-
Joseph Horovitz - Fantasia and Quartets The Carducci Quartet with Nicholas
Daniel (oboe) Carducci Classics CSQ6482
Graham Whettam - Quartets The Carducci Quartet with Jennie-Lee Keetley (oboe):
Carducci
Classics CSQ5847
Philip Gates - A Garland for Gatsby Andrew Knights (oboe); Carducci Quartet;
Philip Gates (piano) Melodist
3130CD
Philip Glass - String Quartets 1-4 Naxos
8.559636
They now extend their coverage to Brian Boydell. The music of this Irish composer
is worth more than a passing audition. Fortunately a range of discs, modest
in number, allows closer acquaintance. The 1954 Violin Concerto and In
Memoriam Mahatma Gandhi, Masai Mara and Megalithic Ritual Dances
played by Maighread McCrann (violin) with Colman Pearce conducting the National
Symphony Orchestra of Ireland are on Marco Polo 8.223887 (we could do with
a review of this if anyone has a copy). Boydell studied at the RCM in London
with Patrick Hadley and Herbert Howells (1938-45) then with John Larchet himself
a gifted composer, in Dublin.
The Second Quartet was premiered in 1959. Its two movements sing through a
delicate interlace of ecstatically pastoral material. Rather than his declared
models of Bartók, Sibelius and Mahler it is Patrick Hadley I hear in
this lovely work. The breathtaking quietude of the end of the first movement
suggests some unspeakably beautiful vision only capable of articulation through
music. The second movement is more spiky - almost jazzy.
The Third Quartet is in one longish movement. It was first aired by the RTE
String Quartet in 1970. Neither of its predecessors evince avant-garde credentials.
This however has a chilly and thorny essence on display. That said it is not
without an infusion of lyrical succulence. Nowhere is Boydell as ‘extreme’
as Mátyás Seiber in his masterly Third Quartet "Lirico". Boydell's
music seems benevolently caught between the poles represented by Berg's Lulu
and Warlock's Curlew. The work ends in an echo of Beethovenian defiance.
Boydell’s First Quartet was premiered in Dublin in February 1952 by
the Cirulli Quartet. It too has its Curlew moments but it is tougher
than I had expected. The complexity of the textures has probably hampered
its progress. However when these thin out, as in the pensive melancholy at
the end of the first movement, things improve. The central Allegro Selvaggio
is athletic radiating some ingratiatingly lyrical tendrils. The long final
Allegro (Adagio) has vitality but there is a severity there
too though it's most poetically rounded out in a manner that looks forward
to the wonderful end of the first movement of the Second Quartet. Gareth Cox,
who provides the liner-note, tells us that in this work Boydell began to leave
behind the too obvious influences of RVW, Sibelius and Bartok. I certainly
agree.
The Adagio and Scherzo was premiered by the work's dedicatees, the
Degani Quartet on the occasion of the 1992 quatercentenary celebrations for
Trinity College, Dublin. It was finished on time in 1991. It's another diptych
this time from the latest chapter of the composer's career. That Bergian Curlew-despair
throws deep shadows as well as intimations of a tender nocturnal beauty.
The urgent attention of admirers of Boydell's music and of twentieth century
string quartets in general is drawn to this disc. Boydell creates a distinctive
and very beautiful realm but is by no means facile of access.
Rob Barnett
A distinctive and very beautiful realm.