Maxwell Quartet I & II

Holy Trinity Church, Haddington 11/9/25 and 12/9/25

Colin Scobie, George Smith (violins); Elliott Perks (viola), Duncan Strachan (cello)

 In two consecutive morning Coffee Concerts at this year’s Lammermuir Festival, on the 11th and 12th September,  Haddington’s  Holy Trinity Church hosted longtime Festival favourites, the Maxwell String Quartet, in two programmes that covered works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.  This report covers the two recitals.

Haydn’s String Quartet in D major Op.20 No.4 is the fourth of the groundbreaking genre-defining set of six, dating from 1772.  The warmest sul tasto, cantabile ensemble tone delivered the mysterious opening phrases of the sonata form first movement, before the first violin’s excitable arpeggiation showed that this would be a movement of contrasts to be reconciled.  Colin Scobie’s violin was prominent but there was plenty of chamber dialogue, especially with Duncan Strachan’s cello.  Key exploration, more first violin excitability and teasing chromaticism featured in the development.  After a pause, the recapitulation featured Colin’s signature subtly modified ornamentation and a sharpening of the contrasts.  The Maxwells’ reputation for idiomatic engaging Haydn rests on exactly this kind of genial fluency.  The second movement, a D-minor theme-and-variations, introduced the theme as a melancholy march.  Everybody got a characterful variation, starting with second violinist George Smith ornamented sauntering, with appreciative comments from Elliott Perks’ viola.  The lyrical arioso cello variation was scrumptious.  The first violin’s birdsong-emulating triplets soared sweetly, though still in the minor.  The last extended variation for full ensemble was harmonically rich, complex and chromatic and of an emotional intensity surprising for the year in which Beethoven was 2 years old.  Stunning playing.  The brief third movement ‘minuet’ in name, was a syncopated rustic dance that only a tipsy Gypsy could have choreographed, its trio a joyous set of scampering scales for cello.  Typical Haydn mischief, swiftly outdone by the bonkers romp that is the finale, a perpetuum mobile of irreverent patchwork unpredictability and not a shred of decorum, until the prim final cadence (as if).  Superb..

Barely 11 weeks ago at the East Neuk Festival, I heard all 5 of the Late Beethoven Quartets performed by 4 string quartet groups, including the A minor Op 132, performed by the Elias Quartet.  Was I ready to experience the emotional roller coaster again as the main noontide work on 11th September?  Oh yes.  Cellist Duncan Strachan spoke briefly and illuminatingly about the piece, comparing the experience of performing early Haydn and late Beethoven, before the brief slow introduction’s tentative search for a key settled on a pensive A-minor, though the ensuing Allegro musical discussion was far from cheerless, with lively conversation in F-major and a wealth of satisfying counterpoint. But the gravitational pull of A-minor wins emphatically, Colin’s stylish bariolage on the E powerless against George’s minor-third C.  Dramatic.  A relaxed cantabile reading lent an element of gracious elegance to the triple-time second movement, while the bagpipe emulation in its central section added a note of bucolic charm, rudely interrupted by a disapproving viola and cello.  And so we came to the Dankgesang in the Lydian mode.  It opened more ‘Adagio’ than ‘Molto adagio’, but nothing was lost from its exquisite stillness.  It was utterly sublime.  The ‘Neue Kraft fuhlend’ (feeling renewed strength) sections seemed released from earthly chains to float freely and blissfully, whilst retaining a soupçon of fragility.  Not for the first time, the closing bars had me in tears.  The brief Alla marcia fourth movement was striding and confident, but theatrically interrupted by a tragic first violin recitative to usher in the finale.  The finale was lyrical, but wistful and melancholy, returning to the anxieties of the first movement with a sense of “life is tough, but hey, I’m still alive”.  More in the Beethoven than in the Haydn, and particularly between violist and cellist, that visible continuous communication between the players that is the core joy of chamber music-making for players and audience alike, was heart-warmingly evident .  The sunny A-major coda brought Beethoven’s Op.132 to a moving, life-affirming close.

The following morning’s concert opened with the third of Mozart’s set of 6 String Quartets dedicated to Haydn, the E flat major K428, dating from 1785.  Something about the fact that the outer parts played from tablets, whilst the inner played from sheet music, made the performance seem to reach across the centuries.  The first subject starts lugubriously, with some nervous agility in the first violin establishing an early contrast.  In this mature scoring, Mozart is generous to all the parts, and the viola (his own instrument) gets a solo of the cheery march-like second subject after the first violin.  Mozart selects the ornamentation of the second subject and some new arpeggiated triplet figures for the anxious minor key explorations of the short development.  When the recapitulation arrives, it is the second violin that gets the solo repeat of the second subject.  I can just imagine Haydn smiling at the younger composer’s seemingly effortless mastery (but probably also knowing the effort that had gone into it).  Even if not, the meditative 6/8 Andante con moto must have blown him away: it is harmonically and tonally adventurous, in two repeated sections.  Colin’s adjusted ornamentation in the first repeat seemed to wink at the audience, and Haydn too.  The second section is a tonal mystery tour (where is Mozart taking us?) and it was superb.  A whimsical and very rustic minuet (with capers not fit to be cut in polite society) brackets a slithering chromatic trio in two repeated sections, the second violin getting to introduce the second.  Always a delight (to listen to and, I can vouch, to play).  The playful scampering Allegro vivace was a game of chasing full of Haydnesque mischief, with first violin as agile virtuosic clown-in-chief, but nobody escaping the technical demands.  Lots of Haydn gags, like pauses, pretending to forget the tune, false starts and, at the end, pretending to dance off  into the distance before pouncing with 4 cadential chords.  Magically gleeful.

Introducing Brahms String Quartet No 2 in A minor Op 51 No 2, violist  Elliott Perks quipped that it was lovely to see us all back, and that we must have a passion for A-minor (a reference to Beethoven’s Op.132 the previous morning).  In this quartet, Brahms, he said, sets his concise material out early and then lets it seem to evolve organically.  Also, to watch out for a canon in each movement.  A brooding melancholy opens before the mood lifts for the breezy idyllic second subject in A major.  Perfect ensemble tone prevented the often dense texture from obscuring the detail.  The mood shifts subtly through the ingenious development, with moments of mystery, passion, regret, impulsiveness and tentativeness all elegantly pointed.  A-minor emphatically reasserted at the end of the movement.  A-major idyllic tenderness dominates the exquisite cantabile slow movement, though a domestic row erupts between cello and first violin in the middle, before they kiss and make up.  Hard to believe that Brahms was never married.  Mystery and intrigue are whispered on zephyr breezes in the ephemeral dreamlike quasi-minuet, whose trio seems to scamper around a garden, pausing to admire the occasional blossom, before heading off again.  The finale is a quasi-waltz, curmudgeonly with 3-bar phrases at first, but with episodes where the frown relents.  An extended glowing idyll in A-major lets us believe that the a sweet sunset is in store.  But no, the coda sets off like a rocket and asserts A minor.  A captivating performance revealed what a masterpiece the Second quartet is.  Enough to shake the Third off my pedestal of favourites?  Do you know, I think it was.