BAX: String Quartet No. 3

Maggini Quartet;
Jackson, Garfield

8.555953

Written for the Griller Quartet in the summer of 1936, the four movements of the Third String Quartet are dated respectively 5th July, 6th September, 21st August and 23rd September. The work was first performed on the BBC National Programme in May 1937, soon after the Coronation, when the Radio Times quoted Bax in its billing, writing that the first movement ‘was probably influenced by the coming of spring in beautiful Kenmare’. He went on: . . . The third movement consists of two strongly opposed elements — a rather sinister and malicious scherzo, and a dreamy, remotely romantic trio. This contest is finally won by the scherzo, when it converts the subject of the trio to its own way of thinking. The texture of the finale is rougher and more robust than that of the rest of the work, though there is a softening of mood towards the abrupt and impetuous closing bars.’ In the trio of the third movement Bax makes a fleeting but unmistakeable reference to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4, possibly his acknowledgement of the Coronation mood in London that year before the abdication was announced.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Naxos

11-11-2002

747313595327