Quartet No 1 in A minor - Moeran

Quartet No 5 - John McCabe

Piano Quintet in A minor, Op 84 - Elgar

The RTE Vanbrugh Quartet has reached England in its "Globetrotting" series and showed a particular sympathy for the works selected in the NCH Last Sunday.

E.J. Moeran's Quartet No 1 was played with a virile passion not usually associated with this composer. The first movement ad the colour and vigour of Dvorak: the mawkishness of the English Pastoral was entirely absent. The more solemn andante leaned more in the direction of Vaughan-Williams and the finale had a suggestion of a folk tune, but they were free of the artificial sentiment that Percy Grainger used to lay on.

McCabe's Quartet No 5 was new to me. Inspired by Graham Sutherland's series of aquatint, The Bees, the music matched the pictures to a certain extent, but after some preliminary buzzing soon took on a life of its own and was very far from being programme music. The Vanbrugh played it with the serious intensity it needs.

For Elgar's Piano Quintet the Vanbrugh was joined by John Lill. In the first two movements he played with a gentle authority appropriate to their elegaic mood and became more emphatic as the music of the finale moved to its victorious conclusion. The Vanbrugh could be said to have led the way, but the pianist was with them in the van: the blend of piano and strings could not have been bettered. This was Elgar without that Edwardian pomp and circumstance that, for me, mars much of his work. An Elgar cleaned up, but not devoid of feeling, it was possibly one of the Vanbrugh's finest performances.