Lindsay String Quartet

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Anyone who loves twentieth century music, who loves English music, or who just plain loves music will love this collection of the music of Michael Tippett. Culled from previously issued but long out-of-print Philips, London, Argo, and l'Oiseau-Lyre LPs, most of these recordings were world premieres made in close consultation with the composer and in the hands of conductors Colin Davis, Georg Solti, Neville Marriner, pianist Paul Crossley, and the Lindsay String Quartet, they receive what can fairly be described as definitive performances. From the ecstatic lyricism of the Suite for Double String Orchestra of 1939 through the luminous vitality of the First Symphony of 1945, the radiant sensuality of the Ritual Dances of 1955, the blues-based modernism of the Third Symphony of 1972, to the glistening transcendentalism of the Fourth Symphony of 1977, Tippett's unique fusion of line, drive, color, and form is performed throughout with passionate dedication and absolute faith in the music's greatness.

These performances are every bit as searching and exhilarating as the Lindsay’s previous Haydn recordings for ASV. Theirs is chamber-music-making of unusual recreative flair, untouched by the faintest hint of routine. Many quartets still seem to treat Haydn as an agreeable aperitif to the ostensibly meatier fare later in the programme. But both live and on disc the Lindsay bring to the composer the same dedication and interpretative insight that mark their playing of Beethoven or late Schubert.

The first of two separate CDs covering Haydn's String Quartets, Op. 50, this 2004 ASV disc presents the first half of the set, dynamically performed by the Lindsay String Quartet and recorded with exceptionally clear sound. Haydn composed these quartets for Artaria's publication in 1787 and dedicated them to Prussian king and cellist Friedrich Wilhelm II. Whether or not Haydn had him in mind for performing these pieces, it is fairly certain he wrote them as a rejoinder to Mozart's six so-called "Haydn" quartets of 1785. Haydn's serious discourse and increased chromaticism match Mozart's tone and harmonic intricacy, though these quartets are more austere and tautly argued than Mozart.

The Lindsays offer strong, eloquent versions of the three Op. 55 quartets. Their playing is full of vigour yet alive to the nuances and felicities of a composer near the height of his powers – perhaps already there in the splendidly volatile F minor Quartet. The Kodály Quartet on Naxos provide an assured rival performance at bargain price, but the Lindsays’ attractive blend of exuberance and poise gives them the edge.

All three quartets are in the usual fourmovement form but they contain many surprises: in No 1, the false recapitulation in the first movement, the dark modulations in the following sonata-form Allegretto and the Hungarian gipsy flavour (anticipated in the Minuet) and mischievousness of the final rondo. No 2 has a rhapsodic fiddler in its second movement, a nostalgic minuet with an extraordinarily anguished trio, and an Adagio finale in which a Presto section turns out to be no more than an episode.

Mixed chamber music programs are altogether rarer than those which include a series of pieces in the same genre. Thus it is more common to encounter an entire CD devoted to Mozart's string quartets or to his chamber works featuring winds. The Lindsay's, however, offer us one of Mozart's best-known quartets coupled with the gorgeous Oboe Quartet and still-underappreciated Horn Quintet.

The Lindsay Quartet have set a high standard of Tippett interpretation, with that special authority that stems from working on the music with the composer. Whatever else Tippett has done, he has not inhibited these players: their performances are characterized by a distinctive freshness and spontaneity, a well-balanced homogeneity of texture and a fine sense of rhythmic flow, essential if the music is not to coagulate around its multitude of contrapuntal details.

In their survey of Haydn's string quartets for ASV, the Lindsays have set about the business of restoring these Classical masterpieces to their proper place in the repertoire, with all their brilliant wit and brusqueness intact, and without undue sweetening or romanticizing. The point, it seems clear, is to bring Haydn out from under the familiar shadows of Mozart and Beethoven, and to render his quartets as the true models of quartet writing, not as light Rococo divertissements or tamer antecedents of greater works. The Lindsays are sharp in their characterizations of Op. 33, Nos. 3, 5, and 6, and their lean textures, crisp articulation, transparent repartee, and pungent attacks distinguish these performances from more commercially pretty or polished versions.