Edinburgh Quartet: At Home

Institut français d’Ecosse - 27/11/22

The Edinburgh Quartet were making one of their regular visits to Edinburgh and to their new favourite venue, the small concert hall in the French Institute at the junction of George 4 Bridge and the High St. This is a great choice since it is a perfect small concert hall for a string quartet with raked seating for about 80 people and a good acoustic. The hall was pretty full for this Sunday afternoon, really impressive as just round the corner Maxim Vengerov one of the world’s greatest violinists was playing with the Romanian National Orchestra at the Usher Hall. I’m particularly fond of the French Institute since I spent quite some time here as it was the Committee Room base in the early years of the Scottish Parliament. Now as well as the French Institute it has the very good French restaurant Le Bistro on the ground floor so dinner after the concert made a perfect day out.

I have been listening to the Edinburgh Quartet for a very long time, not quite as long as their foundation in 1960 but probably soon after when I was a student at Newbattle Abbey in 1963-4, and certainly since I returned to live in Edinburgh in 1999. One constant in all these years has been their cellist Mark Bailey, though even he has only been there for 37 years but is very much the rock around whom the Quartet is built. My education into string quartets was by the Alberni Quartet in Harlow, who when they were young music students fresh from the Royal College in London were given flats in Harlow, rehearsal and concert space, and a grant of £10,000 a year, quite a lot of money in the early 1960s. In return they put on 8~10 concerts a year, helped set up a Harlow Symphony Orchestra, a Harlow Chorus and encouraged the creation of music schools in the town’s comprehensive schools. In the 1970s the BBC were so impressed they made a documentary ‘The Pied Pipers of Harlow’ on the musical culture in the town; this was long before El Sistema in Venezuela or the Big Noise in Stirling but it shows how music can enhance the cultural life of a community. Sadly, most of the music schools have closed due to education cuts, the Alberni have retired and musical life in Harlow isn’t so rich. Fortunately, Edinburgh is big enough to sustain a rich musical life and the universities provide a base for the Edinburgh Quartet, previously in Edinburgh and now at Stirling University. Their personnel has of course changed over the years and the current line-up may not be the permanent quartet but it is a very good line-up. Tom Hankey has played with the Quartet before and is their current leader but is also a member of the Callino Quartet and the Red Skies string section and is a very experienced musician. Second violin Gongbo Jiang is a very experienced musician, originally educated in China and then as a postgraduate and now staff member of the Royal Conservative in Glasgow he has become an important part of the Scottish classical music scene. Viola player, Catherine Marwood, is a very experienced musician having been principal viola for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and is now a well-established member of the Edinburgh Quartet. Between them they brought superb skill to the concert on Sunday but also great harmony exchanging smiles and nods dictating the pace of the music. Interestingly only cellist Mark Bailey has adopted the iPad for use, the others were still flipping their way through music sheets. 

The concert began with an early Beethoven quartet No 6 op 18. This is a great early Beethoven quartet, light, melodic, perhaps influenced by Mozart or Haydn.  

It is full of memorable tunes and without the angst of the later quartets, it was a delight and a great opening for the concert. Unusually the Quartet didn’t provide programme notes for the concert, but Catherine Marwood gave short introductions to the works. This practice is apparently growing, particularly since the pandemic when physical programmes were discouraged due to fear of infection. However most have chosen online programme notes, either written by themselves or commissioned from learned musicologists. Still it does make the critic do their own digging so I’m writing this review whilst listening to the Tokyo Quartet playing the work while reading up about it and writing the review. This quartet was published in 1801 and dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, who was a major sponsor of Beethoven and himself a keen musician. It undoubtedly would have delighted his friends in Vienna when it was played in his palace. 

This was followed by three short works, musical ‘lollipops’ before the interval, firstly Schubert’s ‘Quartettsatz’ which is the first movement of an unfinished quartet written in 1820. It is thought Schubert got side-tracked by working on his ‘unfinished symphony’ and later by ‘Death and the Maiden’. Still it remains a vivid work beginning at breakneck speed before going into a quieter reflective mood then returning for a final flourish, a perfect ‘lollipop’. This was followed by a more reflective work, Puccini’s ‘Crisantemi’ which he wrote in memoriam for his friend the Duke of Savoy who died in 1890. Puccini liked the melodies so much he used them later in his opera ‘Manon Lescaut’ - on listening I thought they sounded familiar. Finally we were treated to Hugo Wolf’s ‘Italian Serenade’, which brought back an embarrassing memory. I remember when I was a young man attending an Alberni Quartet concert in Harlow when Wolf’s ‘Italian Serenade’ was on the programme, and chatting to the quartet at the interval I said, “Who is this Hugo Wolf? I’ve never heard of him!” Howard Davies, the leader of the Alberni, said, “Don’t worry Hugh. We have and I think you will enjoy it!” I did, of course, and later discovered Hugo Wolf’s great contributions to Lieder. His ‘Italian Serenade’ remains his major instrumental work and is now a popular part of string quartet and chamber music programmes. 

After the interval, the concert concluded with Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No 1, the first of his three quartets and composed and performed in 1871 in Moscow. Writing this I’m listening to the Borodin Quartet play it and I have to say the Edinburgh Quartet rendition on Sunday compares very favourably, the lovely reflective second movement is apparently based on an old folk tune and caused Tolstoy to burst into tears when played at a tribute concert for him. It is a wonderful work, played beautifully by the Edinburgh Quartet. This may not be their final formation but they could do worse than retain it. On this hearing not only do they remain Scotland’s finest string quartet, but I think they compare very favourably with any quartet in Britain.