String quartet manage to delight after 40 years on song

THE Coull String Quartet this year celebrate 40 years of playing together and their return to the King’s Hall after 34 years was all the more welcome. The programme was well balanced, matching one of Mozart’s ‘Haydn’ quartets with one of the peaks of the quartet repertoire, Beethoven’s op 130 quartet with its original finale, the Grand Fugue. These two sandwiched four of the delightful miniatures that Dvo?ák adapted from his early songs and now known as ‘Cypresses’.

After a slightly shaky start, the Coull Quartet featured some beautiful ensemble playing with each instrument finding its rightful place in the texture. At their best they produced wonderful dark tones in more sombre passages, with crisp articulation where needed particularly from the first violin. The second and third movements of Mozart’s E flat major quartet demonstrated this contrast well, however the speed chosen for the finale led to one or two passages sounding rather rushed.

Dvo?ák’s delightful and affecting melodies gave a lighter mood to the proceedings and were greeted warmly by the audience. I felt that a less perfect balance, with the vocal line, as played by the first violin, more prominent, might have suited this music better.

Beethoven’s op 130 quartet is a challenge to any group of players and one that the Coull were well able to surmount. Overall this was a convincing performance but perhaps without some of the ecstatic highs and emotional depths that makes a really great one. The fourth movement was particularly fine with a nicely judged rustic lilt. However the tempo of the Cavatina felt too fast so that the broken phrases at its anguished heart failed to convince. There was plenty of vigour in the players attack on the final fugue and some beautiful pianos in the central section but I missed the revelation that can come when what an early critic called ‘incomprehensible … a sort of chinese puzzle’ finally begins to make sense.

by Chris Skidmore