Live Reviews
Wigmore Hall Recital
Musical Pointers
Peter Graham Woolf
This was an exceptional chamber concert, the Tippett Quartet persuasive advocates for the three under-played works which made for a well balanced programme. They showed themselves fully the equals of the Wihans, heard earlier in the week in a well trodden selection of canonic favourites; this was by far the more involving evening.
Two years ago we had found ourselves disappointed by Alwyn's No 3 in a PLG Centenary Concert for Lambert, Rawsthorne and Alwyn, but emphatically not so tonight. He was an unrepentant romantic, but technically a very skilled and versatile composer. There is increasing interest in endeavouring to keep his name unforgotten, with a spate of Alwyn recordings; the most recent one of miscellaneous chamber music fronted by violinist Madeleine Mitchell [Naxos 8.570340].
The Tippett Quartet (formed in 1998) play with fire and unanimity and a splendidly blended collective sound. The Elgar is a gorgeous work, composed shortly before the cello concerto, characterised by a certain ambivalence, 'shifting between easy-going flow and a tense undercurrent' (Mike Wheeler), and was heard to great advantage on this occasion, converting an Elgar-sceptic with me...
I myself had not been an enthusiast for the late Brahms String Quintet, but this time found it thrilling in the Tippetts' full blooded account, enhanced by the contribution of Lawrence Power, described in the programme as having been the quartet's founding viola player.
Concert Review
The Sunday Times
David Cairns
“The Tippett Quartet impressed me by their vibrant attack and subtle yet exuberant musicianship…they are a young quartet of rich potential who should go a very long way.”
Concert Review
The Guardian
Tim Ashley
“The Tippett Quartet’s performance had enormous cogency and power.”
Concert Review
The Strad
Edward Bhesania
“Combining a fascinating palette of 20th Century repertoire with interpretative conviction and a clear will to communicate, the Tippett Quartet displayed a thoroughly reviving sense of discovery.”
Purcell Room Recital
The Telegraph
Geoffrey Norris
The Tippett Quartet, launching “Fresh” a season of performances by young artists, already has a strong following and this concert revealed why. The programme was bold and innovative and the playing combined extraordinary technical accomplishment with flair and a bright, communicative spark. The Tippett Quartet plays with a seasoned cohesion and rapport, but also with the tang of youthful spirit. Only one of the works performed here – Janacek’s Intimate Letters - could be said to be an established repertoire piece, but the ensemble was equally persuasive in tapping the music’s character and giving an assertive profile to Piazzola’s pungent Four, for Tango, the evanescent images of Thomas Ade’s Arcadiana and the dark, stark, ritualistic force of Gorecki’s Already it Is Dusk. The Tippett’s response embraced an arresting spectrum of colouring between extremes of astringency and refined delicacy. Hugely enjoyable and provocative, the concert identified a quartet of such exciting ideas and vital interpretative insight that it promises to make a significant contribution to the realms of chamber music.
Percell Room Recital
The Telegraph
Geoffrey Norris
It was a shrewd move on the part of the Park Lane Group series to allot a whole hour’s recital to the Tippett String Quartet, rather than slotting it in with other artists in one of the longer concerts. This young ensemble has already proved itself a persuasive force in contemporary music, and in this programme of four pieces it managed to communicate the sort of passion, polish and panache that can make even the most intractable of the works sound as though it has a purpose. For as long as anyone can remember, the Park Lane Group has been using the same formula for its annual showcase of fresh talent performing modern music, and nothing anybody says seems to persuade the organisers that it might, once in a while, make a nice change to hear something that is not quite so uncompromisingly up to the minute. But the Tippet Quartet in a sense justifies this determined championship of the new, because the playing has such a seething variety of expression and such a bristling sense of character.
Wigmore Hall Recital
The Telegraph
Geoffrey Norris
‘It was depth and roundness of character that also distinguished the concert of Haydn, Schubert and Ravel by the Tippett Quartet. Schubert’s A minor Quartet D804 was a case in point. Whereas some performances of the finale break loose from the music’s general mood of nostalgia and let rip, the Tippett recognised its poise and made the whole quartet that much more emotionally cohesive as a result.
Stylistic perception and animation also underpinned Haydn’s Op 20 No 2 and the Ravel F major Quartet, confirming the Tippett’s standing as a marvellous young ensemble full of vitality, and with interpretative sensibility and intelligence to match.’
Wigmore Hall Recital
Musicweb
Bob Briggs
It says something about the strength, integrity and power of a musical performance when, whilst enjoying a drink in the Cock and Lion, after a Wigmore Hall show, a member of the audience of that concert walks up to you and your companion and enthuses for a few minutes about what we had just heard. Such was the impression made by tonight’s programme – you simply had to share your enthusiasm with someone.
Starting with early Haydn it was obvious that the Tippett Quartet – still a young group in the grand scheme of things – had spent time thinking about what it was going to play and how it was going to present that music. Haydn’s Opus 20 set of quartets might seem an easy option but it certainly isn’t. This work, despite an outward air of easy going melodiousness and happy japes, has much in it to catch out the unwary performer. The striding first movement was well handled, beautifully led by the cello, the music really allowed to sing. The slow movement is of deep seriousness and comes as a shock but the players here placed it perfectly, making it a logical continuation of musical thought – not always an easy thing to do. The finale was especially impressive, being marked to be played sotto voce until the very end and this is what impressed most about the Tippett’s playing – their ability to achieve a real pianissimo, whilst still allowing the audience to hear every strand, every nuance, of the music clearly and precisely.
These same qualities were carried into Schubert’s A minor work. There is an ineffable sadness to the opening theme, as it oscillates between minor and major, and, despite a little reticence from the first violin, the atmosphere was well built. This performance of the first movement had a real symphonic feel to it and all four players gave everything to make the music live before us. The variations on a little tune from Rosamunde, which makes up the slow movement, seemed very small beer after the marvellously nervous Allegro, but we were given a quite superb Minuet, filled with lots of the melancholy of the first movement. The finale is an odd piece for it’s a delightful, and gentle, rustic dance, and it’s difficult to give this movement the lightness it deserves because of what has gone before. But tonight the Tippetts did it proud; it was light and buoyant, with a lovely playfulness: the rather perfunctory ending came as quite a shock. This was a splendid performance by any standard.
After the interval we moved forwards nearly a century to Ravel’s only essay in the form. This is a true virtuoso work and it received a big performance, the wild finale being especially exciting and giving a sense of fulfillment not just to the work but to the whole concert, for it was the only time the Tippetts pulled out all the stops and let their collective hair down in a barnstorming account of this thrilling music. A too small audience was most appreciative, as well it might be. This was a superb exposition of three fine quartets and with the intensity and thoughtfulness the players put into their interpretations one is already salivating at the prospect of their next show.