Perth Festival: Resol Quartet

St John’s Kirk, Perth, 23/5/26

Resol Quartet

Through the auspices of Perth Chamber Music, this year’s chamber offering at the Perth Festival of the Arts was a Café Concert in St John’s Kirk on the breezy sunny Saturday afternoon of 23rd May, where the youthful string players of the Resol Quartet played a sampler programme of diverse goodies curated from their wide repertoire.  The quartet was originally founded in 2018 by musicians, passionate about chamber music, who met while studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  It takes its name from the Catalan word for reflected sunlight (former first violinist was Catalan musician Maria Vila Ariza).  Various changes of personnel have occurred since the founding and, indeed, the first violinist mentioned on the printed programme cover for the Perth concert (Iona MacDonald) differed from that mentioned in the group biography of the same document (Eliette Harris).  One constant, though, appears to be the evident joy of chamber music-making, radiant in a manner that justifies the ‘Resol’ name.

The third of five ‘Fantasiestücke’, a student work from 1895 by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, is a ‘Humoresque’ in 3, marked Presto.  Its playful melodic inventiveness and scherzando whimsy emulate Dvořák and Grieg by turn.  A delightful concert opener which, coupled with tea, coffee and cake for the punters, and the sunlight streaming through St John’s Kirk’s stained glass windows, was a boost to anyone’s wellbeing.  Just what the doctor ordered.  Resol indeed.

Second violinist Annabel Kidd introduced the next piece, Bach’s Orchestral Suite No.3 in D major, in a string quartet arrangement, perpetuating the sunshine.  The introduction to the Ouvertüre, which sounds festive and grand with trumpets and timpani in the mix, and still quite majestic with string orchestra and harpsichord continuo, sounded more lyrical and pastoral for string quartet, while the agile contrapuntal central section shone with gleeful clarity of detail.  The idyllic reverie of the Air (which gained the epithet “… on the G String” in August Wilhemj’s stand-alone transposition, the resultant irreverent nickname ‘The Thong Song’ from mischievous American music students, and sold Hamlet cigars through the last third of the 20th century) was exquisite, every opportunity for chamber conversation between the four players exploited and subtly pointed.  The three remaining movements are all French dances.  First up, a pair of festive Gavottes, in an A-B-A arrangement, were elegantly phrased to emphasise their genial conviviality. The rhythmic dashing Bourrée and the energetic concluding Gigue continued the mood of celebration, delivered with satisfying clarity and precision and showing how, as I have often commented about performances by the Dunedin Consort, for example, sometimes less is more.  Magical.

After the interval, violist Raphael Chinn introduced two movements, the first and last (5th movement) from Caroline Shaw’s 2015 String Quartet, ‘Plan & Elevation’, titled respectively ‘Ellipse’ and ‘The Beech Tree’. The title refers to the two principal drawing modes in architecture, viewed from above and the side, the former abstract, mathematical and cerebral, the latter evocative, detailed and emotional.  Another duality, the contrast between the planning and execution of creative work, also fascinated the composer.  She was commissioned by Dumbarton Oaks, a house and estate in DC that provides facilities for advanced research, during a period of residency there, to write a string quartet to commemorate its 75th anniversary.  Each of the 5 movements refers to a feature of the estate.  ‘Ellipse’ refers to a path in the grounds, understood only in ‘plan’ view, whilst the living majesty and beauty of the tree can only be appreciated (and “elevate” the spirit and mood) in ‘elevation’.  Something of the satisfying simplicity, purity and symmetry of the ‘Ellipse’ is conveyed by the three-note motif of ‘Three Blind Mice’.  After a string-crossing motif from viola, the cello and second violin’s marching pizzicato tell us that this is a path for walking, while the other two comment lyrically arco about what can be seen from the path.  They all “walk” together for a bit, enjoying the good weather and the view.  Simple and satisfying.  For ‘The Beech Tree’, A warmly arpeggiated pizzicato cello chord progression opens and is overtaken by the pitter-patter of raindrops emulated by quasi-random pizzicato in the violins (an effect that Shaw revisited for voices two years later in the closing bars of ‘And the swallow’).  Lyrical arco viola, joined by violin harmonics, takes over the chordal progression, while string-crossing cello emulates the shower.  Life-affirming rich harmony closes the movement.  Short and sweet, and absolutely gorgeous.

Barber’s ‘Adagio’, not in its original version as the slow movement of the composer’s 1936 String Quartet No.1, but in its guise as a stand-alone arrangement for string orchestra, has become inextricably associated with mourning, having been played at numerous high-profile (especially American) funerals over the years. The slow stepwise ascent of its theme to an intense climax seems to reach out with tender consolation and to give voice to condolence and shared grief.  But how much of that is integral to the music and how much is later social construct is hard to gauge.  The same music was used for Barber’s choral setting of the ‘Agnus Dei’, where it is a plea for forgiveness and peace.  I first heard it as the string orchestra version, played in rehearsals and performance by the Dublin Baroque Players (in which my father played occasionally) about 1972, when I was still in primary school, and found it very sad and moving, but also strangely unsatisfying, as it ‘ends’ on an unresolved dominant chord.  That same ‘ache’ is now part of its catharsis for me, but it was a few years before I would admit to loving it.  We heard the original version.  It was very moving and yes, there were tears.  But it was not elegiac.  It seemed more real.

Cellist Chloe Randall introduced the first movement of Arnold Bax’ 1921 String Quartet No.1, dedicated to Elgar.  It is not, however, remotely like Elgar’s 1918 quartet, which is dense, complex and full of tension (and a super piece, don’t get me wrong).  The Bax is genial and jolly and full of folk-like melodies (more English than Irish, his earlier obsession).  Where Elgar battles a headwind on his bike in the Malvern Hills on an overcast day, Bax saunters along on a sunny day in the Cotswolds, in good company and never far from a pub.  The ghost of Dvořák is never far away.  Not a hint of a Celtic twilight, but still a delight.

In late June 2022, the Elias Quartet opened the East Neuk Festival.  Their concert concluded with a piece by their violinist Donald Grant, ‘The Witch of Leanachan’.  Donald introduced the musical portrait of a legendary ‘witch’ who haunted the woods at the foot of Ben Nevis.  Supposedly gazing into her blue eyes would turn one to stone.  Audience participation was requested and rehearsed.  The recital closed with audience and violinist repeatedly intoning “Hí-rí-ú; ‘n-gorm-shúil …” invoking “blue-eyes” morendo.  Fast forward to 2026 and the Resol Quartet, who count Donald Grant of the Elias Quartet among their impressive list of illustrious mentors, performed the piece sans audience participation, but with first the inner parts, then joined by leader and cellist Chloe (who had learned the piece by ear from Donald), intoning the Gaelic chant.  The piece begins with spooky string voicing sul tasto and sul ponticello, tentative phrases of unequal length leading to a Gaelic air on first violin, reprised on cello after some dreamy shifting homophonic chords.  A wild rhythmic dance, with whoops from the violist, seems to dash across the landscape before coming to a sudden halt.  Then that magical coda, filled with the ache of fearful longing for the deadly blue-eyed beauty, bringing the beguiling eclectic chamber selection to a close.  Excellent.

If the mission was one of advocacy for the wonders of chamber music and its capacity to connect performer with listener, and listeners to each other, it was accomplished in style.  Full marks from me.