Category Archives: Chamber music

On Record – Berkeley Ensemble: Beauty Veil’d (EM Records)

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Berkeley Ensemble [Sophie McQueen, Francesca Barritt (violins), Dan Shilladay (viola), Gemma Wareham (cello)] with Tom Wraith (cello, Dare), Simon Callaghan (piano – Dare, Howell Adagio and Caprice, Matthay)

Dare Phantasy Quintet (1933-4)
Howell Adagio and Caprice (1955); String Quartet in D minor (1933)
Matthay Piano Quartet in C major Op.20 (1882, rev.1905)
McEwan Nugae (1912)

EM Records EMRCD091 [58’13”]
Producer Matthew Bennett Engineer Dave Rowell

Recorded 28-30 August 2024 at St John the Evangelist, Oxford

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

EM Records continues its in-depth exploration of neglected music with these first recordings by proceeding generations of British composers, superbly realized by the Berkeley Ensemble which has made it its mission to revive such works for the enjoyment of present-day listeners.

What’s the music like?

Remembered mainly for miniatures still featuring on Associated Board examinations, Marie Dare (1902-76) wrote several larger chamber works. The (not quite) symmetrical form of her Phantasy Quintet is adeptly handled, and if this piece does not quite maintain the expressive intensity of its initial section, the elaboration of its themes ensures a satisfying overall design. The presence of two cellos yields a burnished eloquence to the musical textures, and interest is sufficiently aroused to make a hearing of her String Quartet in G minor worth considering.

More striking are the two works by Dorothy Howell (1898-1982), the revival of whose music has centred on her orchestral output. Deftly scored for violin and piano, Adagio and Caprice moves between reticence and impulsiveness with a seamless cohesion. If the String Quartet is slightly less well integrated, it is also more questing harmonically with its opening section distilling a keen atmosphere that persists right through to a lively close. A pity Howell never wrote a full-length quartet, but the present pieces deserves their place on recital programmes.

His not uncontroversial reputation as piano pedagogue having overshadowed his legacy as a composer, Tobias Matthay (1958-1945) left a handful of chamber works of which the Piano Quartet prefigures the ‘phantasy’ concept in its single movement of interrelated sections that, between them, outline a formal design whose thematic elements are evolving right up to the resolute close. Worth hearing, but a complete recording of 31 Variations and Derivations on an Original Theme for piano is needed for a fuller reassessment of Matthay’s creative worth.

Ironic that Matthay’s Piano Quartet should have been dedicated to John Blackwood McEwan, whose subsequent condemnation of his teaching led to the former’s departure from the Royal Academy. Subtitled Seven Bagatelles and actually the fifth of his 17 string quartets, Nugae evokes various aspects of that Scottish landscape central to his thinking (notably the Solway Symphony) – its characterful alternation between brooding and animated vignettes making a cohesive sequence whose components would be equally worth hearing as separate encores.

Does it all work?

Pretty much always. There are no overlooked masterpieces here, though the works by Howell and McEwan certainly warrant regular hearings. That these are all premiere recordings makes this release a mandatory purchase for anyone interested in British music of the period and the Berkeley Ensemble, alongside Tom Wraith and Simon Callaghan, do them proud. The sound could hardly be improved on for clarity and definition, while Dan Shilladay’s annotations are informative and not unduly partisan in their making a case for the dissemination of this music.

Is it recommended?

It is indeed. Those who have the Chilingirian Quartet’s three volumes of McEwan’s quartets (Chandos) will welcome acquiring the present piece as a supplement, and one looks forward to further recordings of chamber works by Dare and Howell from these inquiring musicians.

Listen / Buy

You can hear excerpts from the album at the EM Records website, and explore purchase options at the Presto website. Click on the names to read more about the Berkeley Ensemble, Simon Callaghan and Tim Wraith, and composers Marie Dare, Dorothy Howell, Tobias Matthay and John Blackwood McEwan

Published post no.2,801 – Tuesday 17 February 2026

In appreciation – Amelia Freedman

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by Ben Hogwood Photo (c) The Nash Ensemble

Earlier this week we learned of the sad news of the death of Amelia Freedman. In a post on their website, the Nash Ensemble describe Amelia as their “creator and guiding light”, with “an extraordinary gift for creative programming that was appealing as well as broadening musical horizons”. In their obituary of Amelia, the Daily Telegraph described her as “the most influential British classical music impresario of the late 20th century”.

Her work bore fruit both in the concert hall, through the Nash Ensemble’s long relationship with Wigmore Hall that began in 1967, and a long recording career that is noted for its inventiveness and high performing standards.

The discography below is just a hint of what the Nash Ensemble have achieved on record, including a work by Amelia’s good friend, the late Sir Harrison Birtwistle, as well as the String Trio by David Matthews, which he dedicated to Freedman. Also included are a recent recording of Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, a pioneering recording of the attractive Nonet by Sir Arnold Bax, and the vibrant Piano Quartet in B flat major by Saint-Saëns:

https://tidal.com/playlist/204b3684-12f3-46a9-a2a5-87578ece8c36

Published post no.2,588 – Monday 7 July 2025

Summer music – Bridge: Summer

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With another sweltering day promised in the UK, here is a rather wonderful tone poem from the pen of underrated English composer Frank Bridge – one to revel in this Sunday!

Published post no.2,594 – Sunday 13 July 2025

Summer music – Barber: Summer Music

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With the hot weather continuing in the UK, here is a delightful few minutes spent in the company of Samuel Barber – his only work for wind quintet:

Published post no.2,572 – Sunday 22 June 2025

Online concert – Members of Klangforum Wien @ Agrigento 2025 – Jorge E. López: String Quartet

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by Richard Whitehouse

Members of Klangforum Wien ([Annette Bik and Judith Fliedl (violins), Paul Beckett (viola), Andreas Lindenbaum (cello)]

Long synonymous with the Valley of the Temples, among the glories of Classical civilization, Agrigento is a city of the present and not least with Teatro dell’Efebo – a venue appropriate to a programme such as Symposion, presented by Klangforum Wien as part of Agrigento 2025.

According to Klangforum’s website, ‘‘The Symposion project takes up the theme of cultural intoxication which goes back to antiquity. This ancient social practice has inspired an evening with music of our time, perceived in the slowly changing conditions of collective and relaxed inebriation…’’. The actual programme was highly wide-ranging as to content and aesthetic (a full listing can be accessed via the link below), taking in pieces by European composers from the mid- or later twentieth century and concluding with Terry Riley’s (over?) influential In C.

Before that, however, came a second hearing (following its premiere in Salzburg last January by the Oesterreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik) of the String Quartet by Jorge E. López. Written during the winter of 2022-23, this piece follows on from his radiophonic composition Im Innersten: János Bolyai stirbt (previously reviewed on Arcana) while drawing on elements from his Fifth Symphony which, completed in 2023 after a five-year gestation, still awaits its first performance. Each of the Quartet’s two movements duly picks up on elements from either of those in the larger work, though this is not a case of reworking or even paraphrasing earlier material but rather the oblique evoking of it in terms of that creative application of Surrealism which has proved a mainstay of López’s compositional ethos throughout the past half century.

The first movement is prefaced by the title ‘‘Wie man wird, was man is’’ (How one becomes, what one is), which the composer feels appropriate for music that pivots constantly and with increasing desperation between rhetorical aggression and a wrenching eloquence – its motivic elements altering constantly though with a tangible sense of evolution as dynamic as it seems unpredictable. Towards its close this process mutates into a more sustained expression which might have become a ‘slow movement’, had it not opted to close in a becalmed ambivalence.

Barely a third of its predecessor’s length, the second movement is prefaced by the title ‘‘Was denach kommt’’ (What then follows) and picks up on a lengthy fugato such as rounds off the corresponding movement of the composer’s Fifth Symphony. Its musical subject is none other than the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice – source for orchestral works by Joseph Holbrooke and Havergal Brian – which here unfolds erratically while never haphazardly across the four instruments and on to an unequivocal conclusion the more affecting through its very inanity.

This account from the members of Klangforum Wien was as impressive as it was committed, evidently subtler and more sombre than that by OENM in Salzburg but with an undeniable grasp of the oblique yet always vital logic which is a hallmark of López’s music in ensuring its fascination and overall conviction. One hopes more performances will follow (the highly regarded Chaos Quartet of Vienna has expressed interest) and that the composer, who has recently finished his Variations for Orchestra, will embark on a successor before too long.

Published post no.2,545 – Monday 26 May 2025