REVIEWS
Click Here For NAXOS Reviews
“The programme was bold and innovative and the playing combined extraordinary technical accomplishment with flair and a bright, communicative spark…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.”
Geoffrey Norris – Daily Telegraph
“The Tippett Quartet’s performance had enormous cogency and power.”
Tim Ashley – The Guardian
“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.”
Edward Bhesania – The Strad
“…the playing has such a seething variety of expression and such a bristling sense of character. The Tippett’s got right beneath the music’s skin. The conviction of playing was compelling.”
Geoffrey Norris – Daily Telegraph
“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.”
David Cairns – The Sunday Times
Tippett Quartet: Tippett String Quartet No 4 * * * * Rick Jones
The Times - October 11, 2008
The Tippett Quartet, formed in the year of the composer's death ten years ago, break into his fourth quartet with a shudder. Their intent is serious, their execution compelling, their ensemble immaculate, most notably as they run from the molto legato into the movement called Fast with a perfectly unanimous speed-change. Their chords wheeze together and pizzicati sting like darts. Moderately Slow burns a slow fuse to a climax of intensity and Beethoven, quoted in the finale, sounds like a siren, before Tippett's extreme bitterness ends. Quartets Nos 1 and 2 also appear, but they are mere warm-ups.
The Strad – SELECTION TIPPETT:
String Quartets nos.1, 2 & 4 Tippett Quartet finding lyricism in their namesake
Tippett himself coached the Lindsay Quartet (as it was then called) for its recording of his first three quartets (ASV) and wrote the last two for the same players. How much the composer became swept away by the big, bold and energetic style that characterized the Lindsay’s playing is questioned by this first disc of a complete cycle from the young Tippett Quartet.
If in the 1970s the Lindsay was pointing to the music’s modernity, the Tippett has the luxury now of looking backwards to find a greater degree of lyricism in this music, whose roots hark back to Beethoven. Technically the players rise to the many challenges made by the composer, at times with more certainty than the Lindsay, and we arrive at the finale of the Fourth Quartet before needing to question the security of intonation.
Though in general the Tippett players display an ample dynamic range, they take a more intimate view of the First Quartet, and soften moments of acerbity in the scoring. If tempos generally show little variance from those used by the Lindsay, the Tippett does employ a more urgent pulse in the second movement of both nos. 1 and 2, and in so doing gives a more purposeful shape to the music.
Those two scores come from when the composer was relatively young, but by the time he reached the Fourth Quartet in 1978 there is more aggression and dissonance, and from the start the music plunges into a conflict that extends through much of the score. The Tippett Quartet stops short of the Lindsay’s frenetic take on the finale; the music is marked ‘very fast’, though the composer was probably looking for an atmosphere that was verging on turmoil.
A scrupulously clean and clearly recorded disc.
The Daily Telegraph Matthew Rye - 15th November 2008
One expects consummate Tippett from an ensemble named after the composer, and there is a real sense of identification with the range of these three quartets, written between the late Thirties and the Seventies. The players capture the youthful glow of No 1, with a poignantly paced slow movement. By limiting their vibrato in the first two movements of No 2, they emphasise the music’s roots in early English polyphony. The Fourth quartet receives an absorbing performance, lyrical and Beethovenian by turns.
Click Here For NAXOS Reviews
“The programme was bold and innovative and the playing combined extraordinary technical accomplishment with flair and a bright, communicative spark…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.”
Geoffrey Norris – Daily Telegraph
“The Tippett Quartet’s performance had enormous cogency and power.”
Tim Ashley – The Guardian
“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.”
Edward Bhesania – The Strad
“…the playing has such a seething variety of expression and such a bristling sense of character. The Tippett’s got right beneath the music’s skin. The conviction of playing was compelling.”
Geoffrey Norris – Daily Telegraph
“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.”
David Cairns – The Sunday Times
Tippett Quartet: Tippett String Quartet No 4 * * * * Rick Jones
The Times - October 11, 2008
The Tippett Quartet, formed in the year of the composer's death ten years ago, break into his fourth quartet with a shudder. Their intent is serious, their execution compelling, their ensemble immaculate, most notably as they run from the molto legato into the movement called Fast with a perfectly unanimous speed-change. Their chords wheeze together and pizzicati sting like darts. Moderately Slow burns a slow fuse to a climax of intensity and Beethoven, quoted in the finale, sounds like a siren, before Tippett's extreme bitterness ends. Quartets Nos 1 and 2 also appear, but they are mere warm-ups.
The Strad – SELECTION TIPPETT:
String Quartets nos.1, 2 & 4 Tippett Quartet finding lyricism in their namesake
Tippett himself coached the Lindsay Quartet (as it was then called) for its recording of his first three quartets (ASV) and wrote the last two for the same players. How much the composer became swept away by the big, bold and energetic style that characterized the Lindsay’s playing is questioned by this first disc of a complete cycle from the young Tippett Quartet.
If in the 1970s the Lindsay was pointing to the music’s modernity, the Tippett has the luxury now of looking backwards to find a greater degree of lyricism in this music, whose roots hark back to Beethoven. Technically the players rise to the many challenges made by the composer, at times with more certainty than the Lindsay, and we arrive at the finale of the Fourth Quartet before needing to question the security of intonation.
Though in general the Tippett players display an ample dynamic range, they take a more intimate view of the First Quartet, and soften moments of acerbity in the scoring. If tempos generally show little variance from those used by the Lindsay, the Tippett does employ a more urgent pulse in the second movement of both nos. 1 and 2, and in so doing gives a more purposeful shape to the music.
Those two scores come from when the composer was relatively young, but by the time he reached the Fourth Quartet in 1978 there is more aggression and dissonance, and from the start the music plunges into a conflict that extends through much of the score. The Tippett Quartet stops short of the Lindsay’s frenetic take on the finale; the music is marked ‘very fast’, though the composer was probably looking for an atmosphere that was verging on turmoil.
A scrupulously clean and clearly recorded disc.
The Daily Telegraph Matthew Rye - 15th November 2008
One expects consummate Tippett from an ensemble named after the composer, and there is a real sense of identification with the range of these three quartets, written between the late Thirties and the Seventies. The players capture the youthful glow of No 1, with a poignantly paced slow movement. By limiting their vibrato in the first two movements of No 2, they emphasise the music’s roots in early English polyphony. The Fourth quartet receives an absorbing performance, lyrical and Beethovenian by turns.