Music at Paxton: Maxwell Quartet
Paxton House - 24/07/22
The Maxwell Quartet are coming to the end of their three years as Music at Paxton Associate Artists. Angus Smith, Paxton’s Artistic Director, thanks them for their contribution to the festival, the large audience tonight testifying to their enduring popularity. The concert has the air of a celebration with two of their masterly performances of core classical quartets, plus some entertainment at the end of each half.
Haydn is the Maxwell’s calling-card, starring on their two CD recordings (my Opus 74 disc has had many airings in the last year) and even better in robust live performance. Opus 77 no2 (no1 was played last night) dates from the period (1796-1802) when he wrote his most famous oratorios – ‘The Creation’ and ‘The Seasons’. So if we hear the strings playing arias and even choruses, it’s no coincidence. Indeed the violin theme in the first movement has been compared to a Mozart aria. Unusually the second movement is a minuet, although its presto ma non troppo tempo makes it most un-minuet-like. It’s rhythmically awkward too - maybe a rustic, even bucolic, dance would be the best comparison. The trio is more sedate – no-one will break a leg taking the floor here – before the helter-skelter pace returns. The third movement has the flavour of a choral piece, with the strings playing an anthem together. Each player takes a turn for his solo until the first violin soars above the others in a kind of descant. The cheerful finale includes some fugal entries, another choral touch, and the first violin is able to show off with some high final flourishes.
Extracts from Roxanna Panufnik’s ‘The Audience for Narrator and String Quartet’ follow. Typically perceptive verses by Wendy Cope are here acted out by Jamie MacDougall, taking a break from his day jobs as operatic tenor and broadcaster. He steps forward for the Prologue: The Performers. A quartet player describes a gruelling journey to the venue, followed by the trials of rehearsal, each verse ending with the refrain:
‘And you know that at the tail-end of a long and tiring day
You must sit down in a concert hall take up your bow and play.’
Then the quartet performs a short piece of Panufnik’s music, mimicking a chaotic car journey with perhaps some screeching brakes and horns. With pen carefully hidden for the duration, I mentally note the words of The Critic, a fairly sympathetic portrayal in which he confesses that he’s “sick of all the adjectives he uses.” ‘First Date: She and First Date’: he reveals two shy people, not in the first flush of youth, who find that a chamber concert is maybe not the best choice for their first meeting. MacDougall’s performance, especially of the lines
‘I think I look tastefully sexy
I’ve done what I can with my hair.’
has just the hint of the pantomime dame which is cleverly picked up in the demeanour of second violin, George Smith, as he plays the accompanying solo. The Drunk, who like the Critic delivers his monologue in a Kelvinside accent, is counting the minutes till the interval drink, and the piece ends with some suitably staggery music, before the quartet and McDougall clink glasses. Great fun.
Brahms found writing his third quartet much easier than the first two, and described it as “very dainty, very brilliant” with a “tender viola solo”. The Vivace opening in a lively 6/8 rhythm gives way to a more gentle – daintier perhaps - theme in 2/4, reminiscent of a few bars of Scottish dance music. The 6/8 hunting theme predominates for a time, but the daintier passages re-emerge, and both feature in the recapitulation. The first violin takes the lead in the second movement Andante, with his theme developed by all four players. The second subject is harsher and then a more complex version of the original music brings the movement to a peaceful close. The other players mute their instruments for Elliott Perks’ viola solo in the third movement. Its Agitato tempo calls for some vigorous playing from the whole quartet, although the pace slows down in the trio. The last movement is a theme with nine variations, in which Brahms moves around different keys, and then manages to incorporate both the themes of the first movement towards the end. There’s much to admire in this Brahms quartet and in the Maxwell’s performance, and it receives deserved applause. However I confess I found it difficult to love!
On a warm night, with the hall even more humid after the interval, stringed instruments are suffering, and the quartet have had to retune between movements of the Brahms. So they may turn with relief to the shorter pieces in their set of traditional tunes, which has been eagerly anticipated by the audience. This year first violin, Colin Scobie, has written some new arrangements of fiddle and pipe tunes, and also an Irish lullaby. He moves to the second violin seat to allow George Smith to lead the quartet for the rest of the concert. The extraordinary accordionist, Ryan Corbett, shows another side of his talents to join in the fun. The new pieces are available on a CD called ‘Gather’, on sale at the concert. It’s so hot off the presses that it doesn’t have a website yet. Look out for it!
