London Chamber Ensemble Quartet: Howells, Wood

The Strad Issue: December 2024

Description: A telling pairing of master and pupil, performed with élan

Musicians: London Chamber Ensemble Quartet/Madeleine Mitchell (violin)

Works: Howells: String Quartet no.3 ‘In Gloucestershire’; Three Pieces for violin and piano: nos.2 and 3 (arr. Mitchell). Wood: String Quartet no.6

Catalogue number: SOMM CD0692

For anyone remotely interested in British music, this disc has much to offer. Aside from pairing quartets by Charles Wood and Herbert Howells (teacher and pupil at the Royal Academy of Music, and later fellow professors), it also reflects a transition into the richer harmonic and expressive idiom that would flourish in British music later in the century.

Wood’s final string quartet is interesting enough, with its rhythmically supple first movement and the Irish inflections in its second and third movements. And the playing is very polished here, apart from a brief passage of first-violin sextuplet accompaniment in the final variation of the second movement.

However, the Howells is on a different level in its range of expression, which these players fully bring to life. In the first movement they articulate the intricate counterpoint and rhythmic propulsion but there’s also a suggestion of mystery in the second subject. With its trills, pizzicato touches and hint of the macabre, the second movement seems to bear the influence of its counterpart in Ravel’s Quartet. Perhaps the highlight overall is the darkly intense Adagio.

The players are well matched in tonal colour and the vividness of their interpretation is amply conveyed by a very attractive audio presentation.

EDWARD BHESANIA