ROBERT CRAWFORD
String
Quartets Nos 1-3
Edinburgh Quartet
String Quartet No. 1 Op. 4
1 No. 1 Moderato – animato [x:xx]
2 No. 2 Adagio cantabile [x:xx]
3 No. 3 Scherzo: Allegro [x:xx]
4 No. 4 Mesto [x:xx]
String Quartet No. 2 Op. 8
5 I Espressivo, Adagio non troppo [x:xx]
6 II Leggiere, Allegretto [x:xx]
7 III Scherzando, Allegro molto [x:xx]
String Quartet No. 3 (2008)
8 1 Allegro non troppo [x:xx]
9 2 Vivace [x:xx]
10 3 Mesto [x:xx]
11 4 Moderato [x:xx]
Total playing time [x:xx]
Robert Crawford: String Quartets Nos 1-3
The first three string quartets of Robert Crawford (b. 1925) cover 60 years of the composer’s life. These three works, combined with his fourth quartet, completed as recently as December 2010, comprise a considerable body of music for the medium and Crawford describes them as the most significant part of his output.
As he is a string player himself, it was almost inevitable that the string quartet would be Crawford’s medium of choice for composition. His relationship with stringed instruments began early, when, at just five years of age, he took violin lessons in Edinburgh. However, it was during the Second World War, when he was in his mid-teens – and due to a period of evacuation spent at Keswick Grammar School – that his affinity for music began to blossom, and he began to pen his first compositions. Up to that point his schooling in Edinburgh had, as Crawford puts it, ‘actively discouraged any interest in music,’ and it came as something of a revelation to find that his new Cumbrian surroundings included a well-staffed and proactive music department that encouraged both musical activity and awareness.
Recorded on 10-12 March 2010
in St Michael’s Parish Church, Inveresk
Producer and Engineer: Paul Baxter
24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter
Photography: © Delphian Records Ltd
Design: Drew Padrutt
Booklet editor: Henry Howard Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk
Crawford returned to Edinburgh on leaving school and passed his wartime national service working in a chemical factory. During this period he continued his studies privately with Hans Gál, who had fled first Germany and then Vienna to escape the fascist regime,
and had settled in Edinburgh as a lecturer in the University’s Faculty of Music. Crawford moved to London on completion of his national service in 1945 to take up a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama studying both composition and viola. At the Guildhall, Crawford’s tutor for composition was the prolific composer Benjamin Frankel, who was to prove a source of great support and stimulus that, as Crawford puts it, ‘… didn’t dominate, but drew attention to details and encouraged rather than instructed.’ Frankel also encouraged him to compose more quickly, an appeal which resulted in the Six Bagatelles of 1947 (Delphian, DCD34055), which were written at great speed over the course of just two days. Nevertheless, Crawford’s preference is to compose over much longer periods, and each of his subsequent works has been lavished with great care and attention to detail. Every note necessarily provided with a palpable purpose.
As well as this individual tuition, it was above all the three years that he spent playing in the Guildhall’s orchestra under the baton of its then principal Edric Cundell, as well as the vibrant post-war musical scene of London in general, that proved remarkably fruitful to the young composer. He discovered a great variety of music during this period, and especially the works of many composers that he experienced through his own part in their performance. Two figures that stood out in particular were William Walton and Béla Bartók, both of whose music
he played in the Guildhall’s orchestra, while he heard the quartets of the latter performed at the National Gallery.
After completing his studies at the Guildhall Crawford returned once more to Edinburgh in the autumn of 1949. It was at this time that he began the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 4, which was dedicated to his mentor, Frankel, and was one of a number of his early works to be published by the esteemed firm of Augener. The quartet was complete by the end of the year – a substantial achievement for a work on this scale. It received early recognition, winning the Scottish Arts Council prize for a chamber work, and being selected in 1951 for performance by the Berlin Quartet at the 25th ISCM International Music Festival in Frankfurt am Main. Crawford attended the festival and found it a great source of inspiration, not least from meeting other like-minded composers and hearing a wide variety of the latest in modern music. Here he forged friendships with, among others, Mátyás Seiber and Roberto Gerhard and was particularly impressed by Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero.
The influences on Crawford’s music are broad, stemming from a varied training that combined the strict teaching of contrapuntal techniques with the freedom that Frankel’s tuition methods afforded him, along with the inspiration gleaned from exposure to a wide range of contemporary composers. While Crawford was
interested in serial music as a young man, he absorbed the techniques only partially, declaring that he found such methods to be ‘too much of a limitation, and not helpful’ for his composing activities. Instead we find these techniques informing his diatonic language, largely through thematic means, and in turn through an extensive use of dissonance and false relations. Indeed dissonance is of huge importance to Crawford, and one of the main features of his music; he uses it to enhance the structure of his works, stating that ‘the contrast between levels of dissonance and consonance is very important’ to his music.
The most substantial of Crawford’s string quartets, at almost half an hour in length, the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 4 is contained in four movements. Before a single note has been heard, the composer’s singular fastidiousness is evident from the instruction at the top of the score for the quartet to be played with the minimum of vibrato – contrary to the common, and to Crawford’s ear excessive and unattractive, practice of the time. From the beginning of the opening movement, the main musical material of the quartet is heard in the form of a four-note motif, F -D-E-F, which recurs in different guises throughout the quartet, giving the the work as a whole a remarkable unity. Musical economy is vital to Crawford even at this early stage in his career, with much of the material for the quartet being drawn from this short figure, which also provides structural
value and absolute coherence of musical ideas. Musical structure is largely a fluid medium for Crawford and, while some of his movements show a debt to traditional structures, he has made it clear that – particularly in his later works – his technique could most aptly be described in terms of through-composition and constant variation.
Crawford’s pieces to have an opus number: the composer’s withdrawal of some of his works had led a state of disarray in the numbering of those that survived, as a result of which Crawford made a decision instead to append the year of completion to the title of all future works.
The expansive opening movement of the first quartet progresses through a series of short variations towards the expressive Adagio cantabile of the second movement, where the tension builds throughout towards an agitated release. The Scherzo continues with a sustained, but largely soft and controlled, burst of energy. The calmer respite of the central section of the movement gives way once more to the scherzo, a hushed ending leading directly into the slow fugal final movement. The tension builds considerably to the climax towards the end of the quartet, which ends quietly and simply, the quartet resolving onto a unison note.
The String Quartet No. 2, Op. 8, begun in 1956, was commissioned by the University of Glasgow as part of the McEwen Bequest, and completed early the following year. As part of the commission the quartet received two performances by the Lyra Quartet in the McEwen concerts in May 1957. The second quartet was published, again by Augener, in the year following its completion. It was the last of
Crawford’s second quartet is composed over three movements, which are arranged in ascending order of speed, as tension gradually builds throughout the course of the quartet. The contemplative opening movement is based around a slow 12-note ground bass that initially appears repeatedly in the cello, with statements in the other three parts further into the movement – a prime example of Crawford’s partial absorption of serial techniques. The second movement, marked Leggiere, Allegretto, is in the form of an at times mischievous scherzo contrasting with a more tranquil trio. The closing Scherzando, Allegro molto is in the form of a rondo, which corresponds conveniently to Crawford’s predilection for continuous variation. The mounting tension reaches its zenith in this, the most substantial of the three quartet movements, and is released only in the final few bars of the quartet.
From the time of his move back to Edinburgh in 1949, Crawford had combined his activities as a composer with a career as a freelance music critic, writing for a variety of publications. But
by the time he took up his appointment as a music producer at BBC Scotland in Glasgow in 1970 he had not written a musical work for some years. Crawford considers that his need to be absolutely single-minded about composition was largely the reason why this was the case, and with the arrival of children and need to work as a reviewer on a regular basis, there was insufficient time left to be able to concentrate on writing music. Certainly once he had joined the BBC on a permanent basis, his busy schedule and regular travel left no time at all for composition, which inevitably meant that second string quartet was the last composition to feature in Crawford’s output for many years.
In the years approaching his retirement the desire to compose began to return, and his next work was completed in 1987. This first new work, Ricercare, was scored for an octet made up of clarinet, horn, bassoon, string quartet and double bass – the same combination famously used by Schubert. This octet too had come about through a commission from the McEwen Bequest, providing a satisfying continuation from where Crawford had left off almost thirty years earlier.
Following the composition of Ricercare Crawford has turned out a steady stream of works, with a number of commissions leading towards his orchestral work Lunula, a symphonic study commissioned by BBC
Radio Three for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 1997, and the Piano Quintet of 2005, commissioned by the Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust (recorded by the Edinburgh Quartet with Nicholas Ashton, DCD34055). More recent works, too, have come about through the sheer desire to compose, and in 2008 he wrote another Quintet, this time for recorder and string quartet. Crawford’s String Quartet No. 3 was written and completed during the latter half of 2008, partly from inner compulsion but also at the request of Delphian’s Paul Baxter with a view to eventually making a recording of all three quartets.
The third quartet, composed some 51 years after his second, displays many of the qualities of the two earlier quartets; the economy of musical material, the copious yet purposeful use of dissonance while employing the lyrical qualities of the four players to the full – all this remains present. In terms of scale it approaches the length of the first quartet, with a return to four movements. The opening Allegro non troppo introduces at the beginning a unifying rising figure and a falling motif that recur throughout the quartet and that use all twelve notes from the chromatic scale. After a thorough exploration of quartet textures and variations of the opening themes, the movement that follows is a scherzo, clearly a particular favourite form of Crawford. The slow third movement sees short, chordal
sections of calm alternated with a variety of terse episodes featuring more contrapuntal writing. This alternation continues in the closing Moderato movement, with further periods of contrapuntal material contrasted with more hurried, homophonic sections. Once again the accumulated tension is released towards the final few bars of the work, with a unison note surrounding a final statement in the viola of the rising theme from the first movement.
This is far from Robert Crawford’s last word, though. Further chamber works for strings continue to appear from Scotland’s elder statesman of music. A fourth string quartet, begun in 2009, was completed by the end of the following year and, at the time of writing, he is working on a new piece for string quartet and double bass.
© 2011 Adam Binks
Adam Binks is a freelance music producer and writer on a wide range of musical subjects. In 2007 he completed a Ph.D. in musicology at the University of Edinburgh on the music of Kenneth Leighton.
Edinburgh Quartet
Tristan Gurney violin Philip Burrin violin
Discography on Delphian Records. Michael Beeston viola Mark Bailey cello
Founded in 1960, the Edinburgh Quartet quickly became established as one of Britain’s foremost chamber ensembles, appearing regularly at prestigious venues across the country including London’s Wigmore Hall and South Bank Centre. It achieved international recognition after winning the Contemporary Prize at the Evian-les-Bains String Quartet Competition and has since toured extensively across Europe, the Far East, North and South America and the Middle East. The Quartet has made numerous BBC TV and BBC Radio 3 broadcasts and can also be heard on Classic FM. 2010 marked the Quartet’s fiftieth anniversary and it is now one of the longest running chamber ensembles in the UK with a busier performing schedule than ever before.
The Quartet is resident at Glasgow University and Edinburgh Napier University and also collaborates with Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities. In addition to running a regular classical concert series at each of these institutions, the Quartet is committed to nurturing talent and championing new music. The ensemble has worked with many of the important composers of our age, including the Quartet’s patron, James MacMillan. Sir Michael Tippett selected the Edinburgh Quartet’s recording of his First Quartet for re-release on EMI shortly before his death.
The Cold Dancer: Contemporary string quartets from Scotland by Kenneth Dempster, James Clapperton, Judith Weir and William Sweeney DCD34038
Robert Crawford: Music for piano and strings (String Quintet, with Nicholas Ashton piano) DCD34055
Miracles: The music of Edward Harper (Three Folk Settings) DCD34069
Thomas Wilson: A Chamber Portrait (String Quartet No. 3) DCD34079
Mátyás Seiber, String Quartets Nos. 1-3 DCD34082
Robert Crawford: Music for piano and strings
Edinburgh Quartet, Nicholas Ashton piano (DCD34055)
The elder statesman in Scotland’s music scene, Robert Crawford has throughout his life lavished intense care over every one of his compositions.
The Edinburgh Quartet and pianist Nicholas Ashton are intimately acquainted with Crawford’s music and mirror the composer’s attention to detail in a long overdue survey of this lovingly-crafted music.
‘Ashton’s playing has a charge and vigour that captures any audience’s attention’
– The Scotsman, May 2001
Miracles: The music of Edward Harper
Edinburgh Quartet, Edward Harper piano, Anna Jones flute
Louise Paterson cello, David Wilson-Johnson baritone
Scottish Chamber Orchestra & Chorus, Ruth Crouch leader
Garry Walker conductor (DCD34069)
Delphian’s first orchestral recording presents a richly imagined new choral symphony by Edward Harper, setting it alongside chamber works by this inventive and limpidly expressive composer. Harper’s music takes its place firmly within the British symphonic tradition, yet ranges wider still in its deeply felt response to human experience, from the nineteenth-century
Dorset of William Barnes to a message of hope and reconciliation from the present-day Middle East.
‘Harper’s gift for direct expression, uncluttered by fashion or obscurantist technique, was heard at its best here’
– The Times, November 2006
‘... powerful and moving’
– The Herald, November 2006
The Cold Dancer: Contemporary string quartets from Scotland
Edinburgh Quartet (DCD34038)
Rich and personal contributions to the quartet tradition from four contemporary Scottish composing voices, ranging from the lyrical profundity of Kenneth Dempster’s meditation on a George Mackay Brown poem to a characteristically idiosyncratic and yet songful work by Judith Weir. Under their new leader Charles Mutter, the Edinburgh Quartet deliver blazing, committed performances celebrating the immense variety and vitality of work on offer.
‘a bright sound with a ring of steel around it that is ideal for modern music’
– The Daily Telegraph
Mátyás Seiber: String Quartets Nos 1-3 Edinburgh Quartet (DCD34082)
Mátyás Seiber’s three string quartets span his career, from the astonishingly assured student essay of the first quartet, composed at the age of just eighteen, to the mature synthesis of his third and final Quartetto Lirico. Seiber’s work was nourished by several of the twentieth century’s most significant stylistic trends, from jazz and serialism to the folk music of his native Hungary. He was also, like many of the mid-century’s most important artists, an émigré and an influential teacher; Hugh Wood’s booklet essay pays tribute to his lasting influence on a generation of British composers.
‘sensitively and securely played on this finely balanced recording by the Edinburgh Quartet’ – Gramophone, July 2010
‘A complete and compelling revelation’ – The Scotsman, March 2010
Edinburgh Quartet on Delphian