Rubbra Chamber Works

Gently perceptive and lucid performances of some little­known but wonderful music

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: (Charles) Edmund Rubbra

Genre:

Chamber

Label: Dutton Laboratories

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 59

Mastering:

Stereo
DDD

Catalogue Number: CDLX7114

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
String Quartet No. 2 (Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
(Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
Dante Qt
Lyric Movement (Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
(Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
Dante Qt
Michael Dussek, Piano
Meditations on a Byzantine Hymn, 'O Quando in Cruce' (Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
(Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
Judith Busbridge, Viola
Krysia Osostowicz, Viola
String Quartet No. 4 (Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
(Charles) Edmund Rubbra, Composer
Dante Qt
Dutton Laboratories continues its valuable championship of Edmund Rubbra with this first instalment in a new cycle of his four masterly string quartets. Completed in 1951‚ the Second Quartet is a marvellously inventive piece‚ beautifully scored for the medium‚ unfailingly purposeful and full of beguilingly subtle rhythmic and harmonic resource. Bearing a dedication to Robert Simpson‚ the two­movement Fourth Quartet of 1975­77 was one of Rubbra’s last major works. Probing and intensely poignant‚ it’s another hugely eloquent‚ seamlessly evolving affair which repays repeated hearings; indeed‚ the patient listener will derive profound long­term rewards from both works. The Dante Quartet prove outstandingly sympathetic protagonists of Rubbra’s noble inspiration‚ their playing rather more urgently expressive and tonally ingratiating than that of the Sterling Quartet (whose useful complete cycle on Conifer Classics – 5/96 – has now been deleted). Pianist Michael Dussek joins proceedings for a stylish and delectably unforced account of the Lyric Movement of 1929‚ an expertly wrought essay for piano quintet which itself grew out of an earlier‚ discarded string quartet. Likewise‚ the searching and pithy Meditations on a Byzantine Hymn for two violas from 1962 (originally conceived as a solo piece and later alternatively reworked) is in the safe hands of Judith Busbridge and Krysia Osostowicz (the latter as deft on the viola as she is on the violin). Tony Faulkner’s Maltings sound is excellent on the whole‚ if just a fraction too closely balanced for my own tastes (I’d have preferred a little more in the way of acoustic bloom). No matter‚ a very positive recommendation; indeed‚ I’m already eagerly awaiting the next volume (containing Quartets Nos 1 and 3).

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