Review

The Frith Piano Quartet

King’s Hall, Ilkley

We had already enjoyed three very different and equally superb concerts this season and this one more than maintained the standard set so far. Your reviewer will soon be running out of superlatives.

The quartet was formed to explore this relatively rare medium and two of the items played were rarities – brave choices the audience responded to enthusiastically. They cleverly unified their programme by featuring music only by Bohemian composers.

The first rarity was by Joseph Suk, his opus one. It is no student effort but a fully fledged composition that the players presented with absolute conviction. The busy piano part is almost always subsidiary and Ben Frith’s playing was tireless. Throughout the concert, with the piano lid fully open, he never drowned out his colleagues.

Richard Jenkinson’s cello solo in the central slow movement was wonderfully expressive and the brilliant finale was given a full-blooded performance. The cellist spoke to us engagingly about the Martinù quartet. In this work the pianist has a much more up-front role which he made the most of and the composer’s very individual mixture of tension and lyricism was well caught by all the players.

The opening of the slow movement is a long, sad passage for just strings that could present many problems of intonation, but they were effortlessly surmounted by violinist Robert Heard and his colleagues. The changing moods of the finale were strongly projected with fearless attack in the more tense central section before the return of the happy syncopations so typical of this composer. Judging by its reception, this performance gave many audience members a new composer friend.

The Dvorak Piano Quartet is a much more familiar item and this most musically generous work was played with total understanding of its Slavonic nature. Louise Williams seized her many opportunities in the viola part with relish. It was a vivid and loving performance. Thank you all.

Geoffrey Kinder