Robert Simpson - String Quartets Nos. 10 & 11 (Coull Quartet)

Information

Composer: Robert Simpson

• (01) String Quartet No. 10 'For peace'
• (04) String Quartet No. 11

Coull Quartet

Roger Coull & Philip Gallaway, violins

David Curtis, vioola

John Todd, cello

Date: 1988

Label: Hyperion

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA66225

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Review

Newcomers to Simpson are advised to go straight to Hyperion's Sixth and Seventh Symphonies disc (reviewed by DJF on page 36): the direct and splendidly bracing Sixth would make an ideal introduction. This is perhaps more for those who know their Simpson—who know that his music doesn't always reveal its riches on first hearing. While neither quartet impresses me quite so much as the brilliant Ninth or the mysterious and compelling Seventh (at least not yet), I've found that after only a few hearings they've both begun to estabished a strong character of their own—especially the Tenth whose title For Peace is reflected not in any crudely pictorial manner, but (as Simpson once remarked of Bruckner) in the way it seems ''to uncover at length a last stratum of calm contemplative thought''. What surprises and delights the listener is the unexpected touch of gentle humour in the closing pages—''Haydnesque'', as Lionel Pike's insert-note justly observes.

Both quartets are read with authority and considerable vitality by the Coull Quartet, who gave the first performances in each case—it's good to have a disc of new music in which the performers have had time to get thoroughly acquainted with the works. Good recordings too—atmospheric but with the quartet image clear and well-staged. One small grumble: the tracking on my disc is different from that indicated in the booklet (six tracks instead of ten), rendering the cueing in Pike's notes redundant. A pity, but I don't want to end on a downbeat. Hyperion deserve the warmest congratulations for having taken to the pulpit on behalf of one of British music's great, and still woefully undervalued, originals.

-- Stephen Johnson, Gramophone

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Robert Simpson (2 March 1921 – 21 November 1997) was an English composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster. He studied composition under Herbert Howells. Simpson is best known for his orchestral and chamber music, and for his writings on the music of Beethoven, Bruckner, Nielsen and Sibelius. He wrote 11 symphonies as well as concertos for violin, piano, flute and cello. His extensive output of chamber music comprised 15 string quartets, 2 string quintets, a clarinet quintet, piano trio, clarinet trio, horn trio and violin sonata. The Robert Simpson Society was formed in 1980.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Simpson_(composer)

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The Coull Quartet  was founded at the Royal Academy of Music, London in 1974 under the guidance of renowned quartet leader Sidney Griller. They were appointed Quartet-in-Residence by the University of Warwick in 1977. The quartet has performed and broadcast extensively throughout the UK, and has made tours of Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, China, India and the Far East. Since the mid-1980s the Coull Quartet has made over 30 recordings featuring a wide selection of the repertoire from the complete Mendelssohn and Schubert quartets to 20th century and contemporary British chamber music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coull_Quartet

http://www.coullquartet.com/

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