The Heath Quartet - Photo Credit: Sussie Ahlburg |
Michael
Tippett (1905 – 1998) – A retrospective: the first and third string quartets, 'and song cycles 'Boyhoods End' and 'The Heart's Assurance' performed by the Heath Quartet, Mark Padmore and James Baillieu at the Wigmore Hall, 3 December 2013
One of a series of concerts at the
Wigmore Hall
celebrating Michael Tippet’s work - these four works were all
written close to the start of Tippett’s long compositional life.
Unlike Britten, Tippett took time to become confident in his work and
the earliest of his surviving compositions date from the late 1930’s.
In 1943, during the Second World War,
Tippett was imprisoned for two months for failure to comply with the
conditions of his exemption of service due to conscientious
objection. Nevertheless compositionally this was an important period
in his life. He was promoted, from conductor of the South London
Orchestra for unemployed musicians, to become the musical director of
Morley College in 1940 and stayed there until 1951.
At Morley College not only did Tippett
meet Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, but the college became a
musical refuge for musicians and composers escaping Nazi occupied
Europe. Tippett embraced the musical talents surrounding him and the
influence of this and of the war can be felt in his work.
The first string quartet originally written in 1935 was revised in 1943, and the song cycle ‘Boyhoods end’ was written in 1943. The third string quartet was also written at about this time (1946) - more than ten years after the first - and ‘The heart’s assurance’ a few years later (circa 1950). Both of the song cycles were written for Britten and Pears to perform.
The
Heath Quartet, Oliver Heath and Cerys Jones on violin, Gary
Pomeroy, viola, and Christopher Murray on cello, are regular
performers at the Wigmore Hall. They have won recent wards including
the 2012 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artists Award and the 2012
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Ensemble Prize. Their performance
was confident and assured making the most of the great contrasts
available in Tippett’s work, whether playing as one or standing out
during solo passages.
The first string quartet begins in a
much darker and fragmented style than the more well-known ‘Concerto
for double string orchestra’. Attacking it from the start, the
Heath Quartet were full of life, with vivid touches leading into
breathlessness and back. The cello solo at the end of the first
movement was bursting with passion.
The second movement ‘Lento cantabile’
was pastoral sweetness, with waves of lightness and gossamer. But if
that movement was rural the third movement ‘Allegro assai’ was
distinctly urban with rushing staccato business. Each of the fugal
entries was clear despite each of the voices talking over each other.
The ending of the quartet comes suddenly but in this case was
pre-empted by a flurry of bow waving.
The third string quartet is much longer
and more rambling. Here Tippett’s style is more self assured. The
‘Grave e sostenuto- allegro moderato’ contains some of the same
ideas as the last movement of the first quartet but intersperses them
with controlled slower passages. Again the Heath Quartet
sympathetically played the fugal passages so that each entries could
be heard, helping to make sense of the music.
The second movement ‘Andante’ began
peacefully with the strummed cello and viola duet but becoming more
passionate as the other instruments joined in. The violin duet also
deserves mention for its shimmering quality. The movement ended as it
started with cello and viola, but restfulness is quickly dissipated
by the meandering of the third movement ‘Allegro molto e con brio’.
Tranquillity was restored in the
‘Lento’ movement with mutes, but this again altered in mood
becoming much angrier, then vacillating back and forth, until the
final accelerando into the ‘Allegro comodo’.
The song cycle ‘The Heart’s
assurance’ sets a series of war poems by Alun
Lewis (1915 – 1944) and Sidney
Keyes (1922 –1943). Alun Lewis died in 1944 during the Burma
campaign in his camp while Sidney Keys died in action in Tunisia.
Song is a difficult medium as all
emotion has to be portrayed by the performance alone but Mark
Padmore, accompanied by James
Baillieu, is a master of this art form. His clarity of diction
meant that not a single word was lost and he was able to contrast not
only volume but also style of voice, sometimes projecting and
sometimes using a much softer more naturalistic and centred voice.
Baillieu’s piano playing perfectly
underscored the vocal line, requiring great skill and judgement,
adding to the dismay and pain of lost lives and loves. So much so
that the moments when he did not play, such as ‘young men who live
in the carven beds of death’, were made even more stark because of
the suddenness of silence.
‘Boyhoods end’ is a setting of
William
Henry Hudson (1841-1922) text. Hudson was born in Buenos Aires,
Argentina but moved to England in 1874. He was fascinated by nature
and was involved in setting up the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds.
While the text could be read as
whimsical remembrance of times gone with its lists of birds and
flowers, Tippett’s reading was more about the loss of life during
war, and Mark and James brought out the threatening and dysfunctional
power of Tippett’s interpretation. This earlier work contains more
word painting such as ‘flying’, ‘float’ and ‘dance’ than
‘The Heart’s assurance’ and it ended in a quietly atmospheric
unprojected, unheld note on ‘void’.
It is heading towards the end of the
Britten centenary year
and perhaps it is time to remember his contemporaries. Not everyone
likes Tippett, but if the rest of the series is as good as this
performance then it is definitely worth listening to. The next
concert in the series
in on the 17th January 2014 with the fourth string
quartet, ‘The Blue Guitar’, ‘Piano Sonata No. 4’ and ‘Songs
for Achilles’. The second string quartet is to be performed during
the final concert in March.
Reviewed by Hilary Glover
Elsewhere on this blog:
- Christmas Sparkle with Voces8 and Edition Peters
- Astonishing - Peter Grimes on Aldeburgh Beach - DVD review
- British Composer Awards
- Ancient and Modern Il Cor Tristo Hilliard Ensemble - CD review
- Nocturne, Lucy Parham, Samuel West and Juliet Stevenson in the life of Chopin
- Britten Quartets from The Endellion String Quartet - CD review
- Jacques Imbrailo and Alisdair Hogarth at the Wigmore Hall
- Gabrieli Sacrae Symphoniae - CD review
- Britten+ Benyounes Quartet and Philip Higham
- Pianist Ivana Gavric in Grieg and Janacek at the Wigmore Hall
- Sony's new Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy
- Beauty and Control - Songs of Home Njabulo Madlala and William Vann - CD review
- Scraping the Bottom - Christopher Gillett - Book review
- Home
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