Richard Arnell: String Quartets 1-5

In recent years, and towards the end of his long life, Dutton Epoch has created gramophone history by issuing an extensive series of premiere recordings of the music of British composer Richard Arnell (1917-2009), including his seven symphonies, several concertos and ballets, other orchestral works and a CD of his chamber music. Every one of these releases has received considerable critical acclaim and commercial success. Arnell’s music – widely admired by such artists as Sir Thomas Beecham, Leopold Stokowski, Andor Foldes, John Ogdon and many other international figures – had, in its profoundly tonality-based language, fallen foul of the musical fashions regarding new music of the era extending from the late 1950s to the rise of post-minimalism, when Arnell’s superbly conceived and original compositions were rediscovered for later generations, who have responded with notable enthusiasm. This new recording in our Arnell series contains the first five of his six string quartets. They are works that declare him to be one of the most significant British composers for the medium in the 20th century, and the performances by The Tippett Quartet are of the highest standards. WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS. Track listing: String Quartet No.1, Op.4 (1939): Allegro vivace; String Quartet No.2, Op.14 (1941): i. Allegro ii. Andante con moto iii. Presto con fuoco; String Quartet No.3, Op.41 in E flat major (1945): i. Allegro vivace ii. Lento non troppo iii. Poco presto: String Quartet No.4, Op.62 (1950): Allegro; String Quartet No.5, Op.99 (1962): i. Allegro maestoso ii. Canon on four subjects with ground iii. iv. Solo (Lento) v. Duo (Vivace) vi. Trio (Moderato) vii. Quartet finale (Allegro moderato)

Review

Dutton Epoch's invaluable exploration of Richard Arnell's coruscatingly inventive music - including an outstanding symphony cycle from Martin Yates and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra - continues with the world premiere recordings of the composers five string quartetsfrom the Tippett Quartet, captured in stunningly natural sound and accompanied by exemplary booklet notes from Robert Matthew-Walker.

Arnell's quartet writing is meticulously balanced and mellifluously scored in a way that recalls the prodigious ease of Mendelssohn's op. 44.  His mastery of the medium is evident from the opening bars of his first mature quartet (1939), not merely in terms of its idiomatic writing but its taught, one-movement construction.  The sense of a composer writing with an unshackled awareness of the quartets full potential reaches its apex in the fifth quartet (1962), cast in seven short movements that climax in accumulating sections for one, two, three and four players.

The Tippett Quartet's performances are little short of astonishing.  To play any one of these quartets at so high a level of technical and musical accomplishment is no mean achievement, but to capture so perceptively the elusive nature of the cycle as a whole is extraordinary.  It is just a shame that Arnell (who died a couple of years ago) didn't live to hear his quartets brought so eloquently to life.

The Strad, Julian Haylock – 7 January 2011