Edward GREGSON (b. 1945)
String Quartet No. 1 (2014) [27:00]
Le Jardin à Giverny for cor anglais and string quartet (1964/2016) [6:25]
Triptych for solo violin (2011, rev. 2020) [13:36]
Benedictus (1988), version for alto saxophone and string quartet (2021) [3:20]
String Quartet No. 2 (2017) [16:08]
Alison Teale (cor anglais)
Rob Buckland (alto saxophone)
Navarra String Quartet
rec. 20-21 November 2021, St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood, London, UK
NAXOS 8.574223 [67:04]
Edward Gregson is often regarded as the doyen of the brass band world. He has composed many successful essays for this medium. Less well known is his wide range of orchestral, chamber, instrumental and choral works, as well as film and television scores. In recent years this repertoire has begun to appear on CD. I am beholden to Paul Hindmarsh’s outstanding liner notes for information about the music and its premiere recordings.
String Quartet No. 1 was commissioned by Paul Hindmarsh as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Manchester Mid-day Concerts Society. The Navarra String Quartet premiered it on 14 January 2015. In a review, Manchester Evening News critic Robert Beale wrote: “It is an extraordinary work, both gritty and serene. Its three movements are packed with ideas – fugues, variations, cadenzas, a chorale and a march [contained] within the traditional structures of sonata, freely developing fantasia and rondo, and bound together by evolving motives and tonal anchorages providing a sense of journey to a promised land – and he never gives you a dull moment […]” I found that, despite many stark passages, the quartet is ultimately a progression from darkness to light, or from pessimism to optimism. It deserves a place among the most important British quartets of all time.
Gregson wrote a Romance for clarinet and piano in 1964, during his first year at the Royal Academy of Music. He revisited the work in 2016, and rescored it for cor anglais and string quartet, giving it a new title: Le Jardin à Giverny evokes the legendary gardens which Claude Monet made famous. It is hauntingly beautiful, with long-breathed, sinewy melodic lines and nods to John Ireland’s harmonies. It would not surprise me if this were taken up by Classic FM. The revision was dedicated to the present soloist, Alison Teale.
The Triptych for solo violin was originally a test piece devised for the Royal Northern College Music’s Manchester International Violin Competition. This should not put the listener off. It is not a dry as dust, pedantic score designed simply to stump the soloist. Gregson wrote: “Although the main requirement is to produce an exacting technical test, a composer must try and avoid the ephemeral nature of such a task and create something more universal.” I believe that he has succeeded.
As the title implies, there are three hugely contrasting movements. A Dionysian Dialogue is a musical realisation of the basic human dichotomy: “the Dionysian music is raw, earthy, sometimes violent, often ecstatic; whereas the Apollonian is serene, dream-like, calm, assured.” The movement is full of allusions to Bach and Walton, Shostakovich and Stravinsky, reflecting Apollo and Dionysius respectively. The second movement is a “song without words”, a theme with two variations with a nostalgic return of the theme with a fadeout. Technical wizardry abounds, especially in the second variation’s double stopping. The finale Moto perpetuo is a fusion of Italian and Hibernian mores. Based on the tarantella, it somehow morphs “into an Irish jig, where previous chromatic elements are transformed into diatonic ones”. The foot-tapping sounds are not faults on the disk – Gregson encourages this. The Triptych was revised for this recording.
The Benedictus for alto saxophone and string quartet is another adaptation. It began as part of Missa Brevis Pacem, a short mass for peace for boys’ voices, baritone solo, large symphonic wind ensemble and a battery of percussion. Gregson recreated the Benedictus section as a chamber piece, with the boy treble solo taken up by the saxophone. It is a moving exposition of a simple melody supported by reflective string writing.
The String Quartet No. 2 is remarkably satisfying. Conceived as a single movement, it conveniently subdivides into five clear sections. The opening Siciliana is retrospective: it generates much of the material for the succeeding divisions. There follows a faster Alla marcia which presents harmonically and contrapuntally dissonant material of considerable interest. The central section, Come prima (Appassionata), builds on the opening Siciliana, and leads to a “powerful and passionate climax”. A fleet of foot Scherzo follows before the confident return of the quartet’s opening material. Gregson says that this is “a simple melodic utterance in modal G major – eventually subsiding into a codetta with upward glissandi harmonics, before fading into the silence from whence the music first began its journey”.
I cannot fault anything here. The performances are extraordinary all around. The recording is superb. The liner notes are clear, helpful and informative. All five premiere recordings reveal great depth, vision and technical assurance. I look forward to Naxos exploring Edward Gregson’s music further.
John France
