George Whitefield Chadwick (1854–1931) was a leading light in the second generation of Boston classicists. His opera, Judith, was given in concert form at the Three Choirs Festival in 1901 and Chadwick now reappears on the British scene with these two early string quartets joining his Second Symphony (New World/Conifer (CD) NWCD339, 9/87). John Tasker Howard, in Our American Music (New York: 1931) found genuine inspiration and a sense of humour in Chadwick but admitted that ''he warms our emotions, even though he seldom thrills us''. There could be more to it than that. Anyone who can respond to the verve of Mendelssohn's Octet, composed at the age of 16, will recognize a similar exuberance in the finale of Chadwick's Quartet No. 2 plus a suggestion of American rhythms.
The mainstream tradition represented by Mendelssohn was a strong influence on Chadwick. When he left the New England Conservatory, where he later taught and became director, he went to Leipzig to work under Reinecke and Jadassohn: after that he went to Dresden to work with Rheinberger and Abel. Later he admitted that these pedagogues kept him busy harmonizing Bach chorales for four years, but he was grateful for the discipline. Chadwick's style lacks the melliflous qualities of Mendelssohn or Rheinberger but his strong grasp of form and the manipulation of ideas shows that he learnt everything his teachers and their tradition had to offer. He went a little further when he introduced a folk-tune into the scherzo of the Quartet No. 1, which sounds like an anticipation of Dvorak whose role in American music was yet to come.
These first two quartets were recorded by the Portland Quartet in 1987 along with the other three and the Piano Quintet. They make out a good case for the music and are well recorded. But the Andante of Quartet No. 2 (also available for string orchestra) is not as polished as it might be and there are moments of rough attack in some of the allegro movements. However, this in no way detracts from these remarkable student works by a young American composer of considerable natural musicianship who was much admired by his teachers and German contemporaries.'