Britten: String Quartets 1, 2 and 3 and Three Divertimenti The Endellion String Quartet

• 1 I. Andante sostenuto 08:48
• 2 II. Allegretto con slancio 02:59
• 3 III. Andante calmo 10:06
• 4 IV. Molto vivace 03:53
• 5 I. Allegro calmo senza rigore 07:57
• 6 II. Vivace 03:40
• 7 III. Chacony (Sostenuto) 15:49
• 8 I. Duets (with moderato movement) 05:51
• 9 II. Ostinato (Very fast) 03:04
• 10 III. Solo (Very calm) 04:47
• 11 IV. Burlesque (Fast, con fuoco) 02:21
• 12 V. Recitative and Passacaglia La Serenissima (Slow) 09:31
• 13 I. March (Allegro maestoso) 03:46
• 14 II. Waltz (Allegretto) 02:42
• 15 III. Burlesque (Presto) 03:25
• Total Runtime 01:28:39

Info for Britten: String Quartets 1, 2 and 3 and Three Divertimenti

The Endellion String Quartet will enter its thirty-fifth year in the 2013-2014 season with the release of this new recording of the three string quartets by Benjamin Britten plus his 3 Divertimenti for String Quartet.

Benjamin Britten, born 22 November 1913, and being celebrated throughout 2013, was the most prolific and celebrated English composer of the mid-20th century. He was an outstanding pianist and conductor and performed with many of the most famous Classical musicians of the time, including cellist Mstislav Rostropovich who would only perform the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata with Britten at the piano. Britten shot to international fame with his operas which are considered the finest English operas since those of Henry Purcell in the 17th century and he also composed three string quartets which have been a speciality of the Endellion String Quartet for nearly thirty years. The recordings were made in July this year at the Wyastone Concert Hall near Monmouth in South Wales.

“The first of Britten’s three numbered string quartets was composed in California in 1941 to a commission from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. It is a work that shows full knowledge of the Classical tradition and demonstrates a highly sophisticated handling of sonata form and tonality. ...

“If the youthful confidence and desire to impress demonstrated in the First Quartet recall Beethoven’s op.18 quartets, the Second Quartet is Britten’s “Rasumovsky”. It was composed in 1945, only four years after the first, but with the intervening experience of Grimes Britten had grown to full maturity. ... it is much to be regretted that Britten wrote no more quartets for thirty years. In conversation with Hans Keller, the Austrian émigré musician who had been writing with acute psychological penetration on Britten’s music since the 1940s, Britten had promised: “One day, I’ll write a string quartet for you.” When he finally did so, it was to be almost his last completed work: he wrote his Third Quartet in 1975, the culmination of the music he composed after his debilitating heart operation.”

The Endellion String Quartet:
Andrew Watkinson, violin
Ralph de Souza, violin
Garfield Jackson, viola
David Waterman, cello

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