The Wivelscombe String Quartet

Recital 23 July 2025

There were two chances to see the quartet in this this week in 2025

We have two dates in the same week with (almost) the same programme.

Pop in to St Andrews' on Royal Parade in Plymouth, Wednesday Lunchtime at 1300 or
have a night out, with buffet, starting at 1830 on Friday, in Landrake (just over the bridge in Cornwall) in the charming parish church - this concert has an extended programme with some popular classics

I have put the details for both in two boxes below:

Recital 1:

Date: Wed 23th July 2025
Place: St Andrews Minster Church
Royal Parade, Plymouth
Time: 1300-1400

The St Andrews lunchtime recitals programme is free, informal, and fun. Drop in and try it out!

Recital 2:

Date: Friday 25th July 2025
Place: St Michaels Church
Tideford Road, Landrake
Time: 1830-2030

This event is a fundraiser to renew a church window - so they are charging £10 which includes a buffet meal and a raffle ticket.

Tickets from: landrakesterneyfundraising@gmail.com
or on just turn up and pay on the door

Programme

Allegro con Spirito, 1st Mvt, Quartet Op 76 No 4 'Sunrise' - (Haydn)
Chanson de Matin - (Elgar / arr. Thorp)
Allegro moderato 1st Mvt, Quartet KV421 - (Mozart)
Los Pajaros Perdidos - (Piazzola / arr. Coath)
Molto adagio 2nd Mvt, Quartet Op 59 No 2 - (Beethoven)
Crisantemi, (Chrysanthemums) SC 65 - (Puccini)
Andante espressivo, 3rd Mvt, Quartet Op 44 No 1 - (Mendelssohn)
Ragtime Dance - (Joplin/ arr. Thorp)

Programme Notes

Allegro con Spirito, 1st Mvt, Quartet Op 76 No 4 'Sunrise' - (Haydn)

The set of six String Quartets, Op. 76 was the last set composed by Haydn (the father of the string quartet) in 1797 or 1798. At the time Haydn was employed at the court of Prince Nicolaus Esterházy II and was also working on the oratorio 'The Creation'.

The Op. 76 quartets are among Haydn's most ambitious and sophisticated chamber works.

We are playing the opening movement of the the third quartet in the set - known as the Sunrise because of the theme that rises like the sun over quiet chords in the opening bars.

Chanson de Matin - Op. 15, No. 2 (Elgar; arr. Thorp)

'Morning Song' is a short piece originally for violin and piano, written in 1889 or 1890. Elgar also composed a companion piece, Chanson de Nuit, Op. 15, No. 1, which has not had the same perennial popularity. Elgar briefly quotes this well known melody in the second movement of his String Quartet in E minor.

Allegro moderato 1st Mvt, Quartet KV421 - (Mozart)

We have chosen the first movement from the second of Mozart's quartets dedicated to Haydn, written between 1782 and 1785. Mozart wrote to Haydn about the quartets in the manuscript:

"Here they are then, O great Man and dearest Friend, these six children of mine. ... From this moment I resign to you all my rights in them, begging you however to look indulgently upon the defects which the partiality of a Father's eye may have concealed from me, and in spite of them to continue in your generous Friendship for him who so greatly values it ."

There is a halting uncertainty about the main theme of this first movement that Schoenberg described as 'prose like' and which builds an unusual level of tension.

Los Pajaros Perdidos - (Piazzolla; arr. Coath)

Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was a composer, arranger, and virtuoso Bandoneon player (a type of accordion). He was the founder of the nuevo tango style incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. At one point Piazzola thought that his future would be in classical composition and he became a student of the famed teacher and composer Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Boulanger encouraged him to explore new compositional processes but definitely not to abandon tango.

We have chosen a tango that explores anger, loss, and regret - fairly typical themes for the genre - which Piazzola wrote to words by Argentinian poet Mario César Trejo . The title translates as 'The Lost Birds' and the words deal with lost youth and lost love.

Molto adagio 2nd Mvt, Quartet Op 59 No 2 - (Beethoven)

This glorious, hymn like, slow movement from the second quartet of the Opus 59 set shows mid-period Beethoven at his absolute best. In many ways it anticipates the Heiliger Dankgesang hymn to the Divine in the later Quartet Op. 132. According to Thayer - Beethoven's earliest biographer - the composer conceived of this music while watching the stars and contemplating the divine music of the spheres. It is easy to believe.

Crisantemi, (Chrysanthemums) SC 65 - (Puccini)

To describe Giacomo Puccini as a popular composer would be to miss the point somewhat. In Italy he was regarded as a national hero in his own lifetime and his operas (or arias from them) have been performed pretty much everywhere, pretty much all of the time since his death. It is also worth mentioning that he was the fifth generation of a family of professional musicians and composers. It was the family business and he was very good at it.

However, we don't hear much of his instrumental compositions and this is a lovely, if sad, short example. Puccini sat down and wrote it, for string quartet, in one night in 1890 after hearing of the death of his friend Amadeo, Duke of Aosta. The title comes from the use of Chrysanthemums as funeral flowers. It is short and intense, and in the sombre key of C# Minor.

Andante espressivo, 3rd Mvt, Quartet Op 44 No 1 - (Mendelssohn)

Mendelssohn was a child prodigy and was inevitably compared to the young Mozart. Goethe - who remarkably had the chance to hear both in their early years - declared that:

[what Mendelssohn] "already accomplishes, bears the same relation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child"

But the Opus 44 quartets were written when the composer was nearly 30 years old in 1839 and illustrate well how "throughout his short career he remained comfortably faithful to the musical status quo" (Richard Taruskin).

Mendelssohn was also a talented visual artist and, as in the Hebrides overture, you always get the feeling he is painting a picture.

Ragtime Dance - (Joplin; arr. Thorp)

Scott Joplin was born just four years after the American Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which outlawed slavery in the U.S.

He is now so well known and his tunes - most notably 'Maple Leaf Rag' (1899) and 'The Entertainer' (1902) - so widely loved that it is easy to forget that he lived a life of struggle and disappointment, died in poverty, and was almost forgotten.

His rediscovery started in 1968 when Joshua Rifkind (now Professor at Boston University) researched and recorded an obscure album of Joplin Rags. These recordings were used as source material by Marvin Hamlisch for his Oscar-winning score for George Roy Hill's film 'The Sting' (1973). Within months of the films release Joplin became world famous, sixty years after his death.

Details and video of the last recital can be found following this link.

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