Although the Elgar is probably the selling-point of this issue, the Walton String Quartet stands in greater need of the advocacy of a good new interpretation and recording. Here it receives both. A by-blow of such a good performance is that it re-establishes the work in its original medium. In 1971, Walton arranged it for larger forces as Sonata for strings, re-composing some of it in the process, and generally this version was hailed as superior. I didn't agree then, and I agree even less now that I have heard the Gabrieli's su perb presentation of the music as Walton conceived it. He had decided in 1939, after the Violin Concerto, to turn to chamber music ''to teach myself to compose'', but the war, with its demands on him for film music, meant that it was 1947 before the String Quartet appeared. Obviously, and especially in the first movement, familiar scenes are re-visited, but that is only another way of saying that Walton remains himself and true to himself. He always shows us a different view of the scenes, anyway, and in the slow movement, as William Mann rightly says in his sleeve-note, he strikes a new and deeper lyrical vein. No sign here of his being 'written out'. Recorded in the superb acoustic of the Snape Maltings, this performance is what the work has needed for years.
Elgar's String Quartet is 'different' too, in a sense, but one can easily exaggerate its autumnal quality. There is, after all, a lot of vigorous and spring-like music here which the Gabrieli play with a virtuoso sparkle. The tender and idyllic slow movement, which Lady Elgar loved so much, evokes poetic playing. I found the Chilingirian's recent HMV performance rather low-key. The Gabrieli's is much more firmly projected and although the Chilingirian record also has Elgar's great Piano Quintet with Bernard Roberts, the attraction of the Walton must weight the balance towards the Gabrieli.'