String Quartets Nos 1 & 3 / Cello Sonata

"While the First Quartet is dedicated to Vaughan Williams don't for one moment imagine that it will sound entirely like that composer although there are a few fleeting moments where if coasts close to that green and pleasant land. For the most part though this is a work that is of a piece with Rubbra's own First Symphony and then with the much later Piano Concerto. After an insistently morose lento the finale launches one of those typical ostinati over which Rubbra pitches a quick-running vital sinuous tune; this time with much in common with the Fifth Symphony.

The Third Quartet was a child (albeit a wise and knowing child) of the 1960s. Intense, grave, dense and then skittish. Overall though this is once again a work of Beethovenian introspection despite an allegro leggiero that flies Tippett-like through the Dark Night of the Soul. It ends with a modestly confident gesture.

The six minute Improvisation is typically serious Rubbra. It prompts thoughts of the Bach suites for solo cello, of the amber-toned reflections of Bax's Rhapsodic Ballad and of the uncanny closeness the Finzi Cello Concerto.

The Cello Sonata has that trademark occluded lyricism. It begins with all the potency of Rubbra's beetling Soliloquy (cello and orchestra - recorded by Rohan de Saram on a Lyrita LP). Rather like the Improvisation this too might occasionally remind you of the Finzi Cello Concerto both in its singing lines and its Bachian contouring. The movements are laid out, slow - fast - slow

Wonderful discs making available vibrant and sincerely expressed music of unaffected profundity well supported in each case by the booklet notes and by the closely engaged recording."
(MusicWeb Feb 2003)