Good to see this major
cycle continuing. Volume 1 was chosen
as a Recording of the Month for October
last year (Review
); its successor lives up to the first
volume’s promise and once again the
excellent Maggini Quartet bring their
impressive qualities of youth, technical
excellence and intellectual grasp to
bear on these sometimes complex scores.
Although the Third
Quartet was initially intended as an
exercise in what the composer himself
refers to as a ‘concentrated attempt
at virtuoso composition’, external events
intervened and changed the quartet’s
course. The event in question was the
invasion of Iraq; the use of the title,
‘March’ is apposite for the first movement,
then. Maxwell Davies’ own note is interesting
in that he refers to the ‘short exposition’
being ‘in C minor’, and there are indeed
hints of tonal constructs, although
without the supporting armoury of tonal
directional movement. A coda brings
sudden stasis after the march is developed
(transformed) into a march of ‘a fatuous
and splintered nature’ (Maxweell Davies).
The whole is delivered with supreme
confidence by the Magginis.
The second movement
is subtitled, ‘In Nomine’ and is the
gripping emotional centre of the work
(it lasts 11’42). Using techniques drawn
from Renaissance polyphony and indeed
the ‘In Nomine’ melody itself (although
it is not heard initially), it also
takes up an argument directly from the
close of the first quartet. Such inter-work
relationships are one of the privileges
a composer can allow himself when working
on such an extended canvas as a pre-agreed
cycle of quartets, so that works can
reach across time t o ‘speak’ with others,
or indeed, to ‘bleed’ into them. As
one listens, it becomes obvious that
this is ultra-carefully constructed
music that will repay many, many revisits.
The elusive and disjunct
third movement (‘Four Inventions and
a Hymn’) works particularly well here,
perhaps because the immediate recording
gives it that extra bit of presence.
The Hymn happens near the end (5’20
into a movement that lasts 6’19), and
emerges as though through the aural
equivalent of a distorting fairground
mirror!. Finally there comes a fugal
finale. This movement plays with fugue
in the traditional sense and the actual
meaning of the word ‘Fuga’ (‘flight’).
The idea of various strata interacting
interests me personally as a listener.
It is fascinating that, as Maxwell Davies
interrupts the slow fugue proper, one
can imagine the fugue continuing while
the busy foreground is taking up our
consciousness; so that when we hear
the fugue again, it is more that we
‘rejoin’ it further along its path.
Virtuoso composition given a virtuoso
performance in excellent sound.
The Fourth Quartet
is subtitled ‘Children’s Games’. Reporting
on its London premiere, I suggested
that ‘there is much to be discovered
at subsequent hearings’ (review
) and this disc indeed gives us the
opportunity to get to know this score
better. Here, in a single movement,
Maxwell Davies seems intent on playing
with perspective. The work is a response
to Breughel’s 1560 painting of children
playing (http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bruegel/bruegel_games.jpg.html
; why could this not be reproduced on
the cover of the disc?). Just as the
painter plays with our vision, Maxwell
Davies plays with our hearing, leading
us down various pathways that may or
may not be cul-de-sacs. The journey
Max takes us on poses huge challenges
for the performers (good job both violinists
are so happy way up in the stratosphere),
but also for the listener. Maxwell Davies’
imagination is simply remarkable.
The Maggini Quartet
seems to want to emphasise the beauty
inherent in this work, and there are
many passages that make one hold one’s
breath.
An important release.
Colin Clarke
Maggini Quartet (Laurence Jackson, David Angel,
violins; Martin Outram, viola; Michal Kaznowski,
cello). 
