Endellion String Quartet
11 October 2015 at 4.00 pm
(The Endellion String Quartet appear by arrangement with Hazard Chase Ltd)
Andrew Watkinson (violin), Ralph de Souza (violin), Garfield Jackson (viola), David Waterman (cello )
Andrew Watkinson (violin), Ralph de Souza (violin), Garfield Jackson (viola), David Waterman (cello )
Haydn:
Shostakovich: Beethoven: |
Quartet in E flat Op 76 No 6
Quartet in C minor No 8 Op 110 Quartet in B flat Op 130 with Grosse Fuge |
The Endellion String Quartet is arguably the finest Quartet in Britain today but it also has an international reputation with regular world wide tours. “There’s always a feeling when listening to the Endellion Quartet that you’re listening to the Urtext method of quartet playing. Maybe 35 years of playing together has brought to them as a group a uniformity of thought and instinct that allows them to play as a single entity.” (The Gramophone)
Review:
'The term 'Amadeus playing' is imprecise, but anyone who has ever heard them will know what it means: something to do with depth of sound, with the savouring of every note, with expressive nuances so carefully studied that they are second nature, yet found newly created'. This was Nicholas Kenyon, writing about a concert at London's Festival Hall in the 1980s by the legendary Amadeus Quartet. At the time of that concert, the Amadeus had been playing together for 37 years, and many of OMS' audience will have developed their love of music through these years when the Amadeus were, as the current expression has it, in their pomp. But these words could equally be used of the playing which OMS heard on Sunday afternoon at The Clarendon Muse. The Endellion String Quartet are now are in the 36th year of their music-making, and the depth of their understanding, unanimity of approach and sheer mature mastery all show them as worthy inheritors of the mantle of the Amadeus.
So it was an amazing privilege for a large audience to hear the Endellion in Watford for the first time. The Haydn Op 76/6 appeals by its combination of apparent simplicity and classicism allied with formal innovation, the Shostakovich Quartet No 8 by its searing vision of personal anguish and torment and Beethoven's Op 130 and 133 by its ascent from conventional form and matter to the mind-shattering complexity of the Grosse Fuge. Nicholas Kenyon described the Amadeus in the above piece as 'three supremely reliable chamber music players matched by one wayward genius' - hearing the Endellion, you feel their genius is to speak with one voice, no one player leading , save as the music requires, yet forming a new fifth entity through their shared vision and musicianship.
Privileged to hear all that was the largest OMS audience for many years, upwards of 140 and still counting. Particularly welcome were the large number of young music lovers, including many from the Purcell School. It is wonderful that, all thanks to the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust, they can hear this music free of any charge and, who knows, they may have been inspired to pursue their own musical dream by the experience. OMS' embracing of online booking was also a substantial contributor to the audience - 41 tickets were sold online. There was no booking fee, and many newcomers to OMS spoke of the ease of the online booking system. Let's hope they will be encouraged to come to other concerts now. This concert was enabled by sponsorship from the Lawton Trust - it is tremendous for OMS to have this endorsement and support from a name well-known in Watford's commercial life for many decades past.
Once again, the concert showed how ideal the Clarendon Muse is for chamber music. The members of the quartet were unanimous in their approval of the wide playing area, the warm acoustic and, particularly, their feeling that they were engaging with every member of the audience. Nicholas Kenyon had referred to the Festival Hall as 'an inhumanly large arena' - no such problem with The Muse, where every member of the audience has, as in a lecture theatre, a perfect view of the performers. This intimacy certainly helped create those rapt moments of total involvement when one could sense that performers and audience were all equally involved in the experience.
An aside. All musicians have different ways of approaching their concerts; some wish to be left alone, others take to their mobile devices, some just chill out. The Endellion followed their invariable practice - an hour before the concert, they broke off rehearsing, downed bows, took themselves to the dressing room and bridged the time till the concert with.....Bridge! They are joined not only by their love of music but also by their enjoyment of the cerebral game (or is it now a sport?) which must be a marvellous way of occupying the mind away from the music. It can be disclosed that they always play with the same partner! Discretion seemed to indicate that this was sufficient intrusion on their privacy, though.
A reflection. Although the audience numbers were high beyond expectation, this was by no means the largest Watford audience for a string quartet. On Tuesday 15th February 1983, the Alban Berg Quartet from Vienna gave a concert at what was then Watford Town Hall. Relatively unknown in Britain at that time, they played a programme of Mozart 'Hunt' Quartet, Stravinsky Three Pieces and Concertino, and Beethoven Op 131. When they came on to the stage, they stood open-mouthed for several seconds, facing an audience of 1500 (or whatever the capacity was) - they clearly had no idea that Watford had so many chamber music devotees who wanted to hear them. What, one would like to think, they never knew was that the concert, put on with great public spirit by Trewins, part of the John Lewis Partnership, was absolutely free and that a small item in the Watford Observer had told readers that tickets were available simply by sending a s.a.e! Were any of our present audience there? The Alban Berg Quartet became one of the world's great quartets, but one would like to think they looked back on their Watford concert and its massive audience with special affection. Their cellist was Valentin Erben - although the quartet retired in 2008, he was still playing a couple of years ago when he joined his pupils, the Belcea Quartet, in the Schubert Quintet at Wigmore Hall.
Tony Bramley-Harker