Maggini Quartet - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Phantasy Quintet; String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 (2001)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 318 Mb | Total time: 66:29 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.555300 | Recorded: 2000
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 318 Mb | Total time: 66:29 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.555300 | Recorded: 2000
The Maggini Quartet, even more responsive than on their previous discs of British music, give revelatory performances of works that too often have been underestimated, regarded as mere diversions from the composer’s regular path. The Magginis find a rare clarity and warmth in both quartets. The First was written soon after Vaughan William’s studies with Ravel in Paris, with obvious echoes not just of Ravel but of the Debussy Quartet. The Second Quartet dates from 1942 to 1943, written in the crucial gap between the lyrical Symphony No. 5 and the abrasive No. 6. Most revelatory of all is the Maggini performance of the Phantasy Quintet of 1912, a masterpiece long neglected, weighty and compressed.