Bax: String Quartet No. 3
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ARNOLD BAX
Bax: String Quartet No. 3
Maggini Quartet
[ Naxos / CD ]
Release Date: Thursday 6 February 2003
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The last of Bax's string quartets, his last extended chamber work, dates from the summer of 1936 when he was 52, and it is fascinating to place it beside works for the same medium written when he was a student. Bax produced two student string quartets, and a movement from the second of these is included here, while in a movement from another early chamber work, the String Quintet in G, we can hear his stepping stones to his mature style.
"In Fanfare 25:6, Peter J. Rabinowitz "strongly recommended" the Maggini Quartet's performance of Arnold Bax's First and Second String Quartets on Naxos 8.555282. He also hoped "that the Third Quartet-Bax's longest-is on the Maggini agenda." Obviously it was, for here it is, with the excellent results that one would expect from this outstanding ensemble.
There is much fine music here. Echoing my colleague: strongly recommended."
- Robert McColley, Fanfare, May/June 2003
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"Bax's Third Quartet dates from 1936 and is a tautly argued masterpiece. Dusted with Celtic flavour, the music is wonderfully coherent and involving, full of dramatic thrust and brilliantly set. The Maggini's deliver with tremendous commitment and skill, once again affirming their stature as among the finest purveyors of British chamber music today. One of the year's best chamber music releases."
- James Manishen, Winnipeg Free Press, February 22, 2003, Five Stars
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"Baxians have had to wait over two decades for a digital successor to the Amici Quartet's pioneering LP, so I'm delighted to report that the Maggini Quartet forge a well-paced and concentrated interpretation, playing with assurance, infectious rhythmic snap and heartwarming dedication. They are joined by violist Garfield Jackson for the haunting Lyrical Interlude from 1922 (a reworking of the slow movement from Bax's ambitious String Quintet of 1908), and there's another rarity in the shape of the lovely Adagio ma non troppo centrepiece from the 1903 String Quartet in F major that Bax orchestrated two years later as his first tone-poem, Cathaleen-ni-Hoolihan.
Throughout, the sound is faithful in timbre and the balance most musically judged. Next up from the Maggini on Naxos is a Frank Bridge cycle - a mouthwatering prospect! In the meantime, don't miss this outstanding disc."
- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, January 2003, Editor's Choice
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"The Maggini Quartet's series of British Music recordings for Naxos goes from strength to strength. Their earlier disc of Bax's first two numbered quartets was rapturously received, but this is even finer, when the String Quartet no. 3 of 1936 offers such a revelatory new view of the composer. If in the sequence of seven symphonies that Bax completed between the two world wars the writing often suggests piano improvisation scored for orchestra, this quartet represents Bax at his sharpest, with no meandering.
The Magginis are masterly throughout, not just in the four substantial movements of the quartet but in the two Irish-inspired movements written much earlier."
- Edward Greenfield, The Guardian, December 13, 2002
Tracks:
String Quartet No. 3
Lyrical Interlude for string quintet
Adagio ma non troppo 'Cathaleen-ni-Hoolihan'
