Alwyn • Carwithen

Alwyn: String Quartet No. 3; Three Winter Poems; Carwithen: String Quartets Nos 1 & 2

Tippett Quartet

Somm Recordings SOMMCD 0194

72:52 mins

How much more music would Dorothy Carwithen have written had she not become her former teacher William Alwyn’s secretary and amanuensis in her late 30s? Quartet No. 1 dates from Carwithen’s 20s, when she was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music. Its technical fluidity suggests a much more mature composer, and the restiveness of its first two movements is only partly dispelled by the jittery syncopations and fugal sorties of the finale. The two-movement Quartet No. 2 dates from five years later, and the emotional intensity has heightened. Nervous tremolandos underpin the keeningly aspirant violin lines of the opening slow movement, while in the finale jagged staccato accents and elements of dissonance hobble attempts to reach a satisfying catharsis. It’s a compelling piece of musical argument, played with bold incisiveness by the Tippett Quartet.

Alwyn’s Quartet No. 3, also in two movements, was the last major work he completed before his death in 1985, by which time he had been married to Carwithen for a decade. Its tautly argumentative opening movement gives way to an Adagio whose generous, at times haunted lyricism has an unmistakably valedictory quality. His Three Winter Poems, vividly played, evoke the season strongly. Terry Blain PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★