Edmund Rubbra’s four quartets cover an even longer period of his creative career than the symphonies: the first version of the F minor Quartet goes back to 1933, before the First Symphony, while the Fourth dates from 1977 just before the last, one-movement Eleventh. The First pays tributes to Vaughan Williams, “whose persistent interest” in the original 1933 version led to a revision of the score in 1946, while the Fourth is dedicated to a younger master of the medium, Robert Simpson. So far only the Second has been commercially recorded, first by the Griller Quartet (Decca, 11/52 – nla), secondly by the Amici (Pye, 10/67 – nla) and more recently by the English Quartet (Tremula, 12/93). When I bought it as a student the score of the First Quartet cost 3s 5d – roughly 17p! It is many years since I have actually heard it and I must confess I had forgotten how impressive a piece it is. In his essay on the chamber music in Edmund Rubbra (edited by Lewis Foreman; Triad Press: 1977) the late Harold Truscott even went so far as to call it “a key work in [Rubbra’s] output, and in the revised version of 1946, one of the greatest string quartets I know”. And writing of the Second a year or so back, MEO drew attention to “a noble melodic breadth that makes the slow Cavatina resonate in the memory for days”. The Third, written in 1963, moves with a tremendous sense of purpose, and is a work of great nobility and expressive substance, and the same holds for the elegiac Fourth.
It almost beggars belief that three of these quartets are appearing on CD for the first time, and that it has taken half a century for the First to reach the catalogue. Gratitude is in order for the enterprise of Conifer and the advocacy of the Sterling Quartet, whose playing has splendid commitment. They have evident feeling for this music. Generally speaking intonation and ensemble are very good and in the Third Quartet the artists are scrupulous in observing dynamic markings, though I would have welcomed a wider dynamic range and greater variety of tonal colour in the First. For example, the very opening of the F minor work, marked pianissimo, sounds mezzo piano and dynamic contrasts could be made more telling. Much of the blame must rest with the forward balance which does not flatter the musicians tonally. We are very much in the front row and there is a touch of rawness and insufficient tonal beauty. For example, at the fortissimo pesante passage at fig. 24 in the slow movement (track 2, 5'36''), there is no room for the sound to expand, and the overall impression is a bit unrelieved. Readers need not hold back on this count and in registering these points, I would not want to get them out of proportion. This is music of depth and eloquence and needs to resonate in the world. As Sir Adrian Boult once wrote, Rubbra has never made any concession to popularity, but “he goes on creating masterpieces, which I am convinced will survive their composer and most of those who are his contemporaries”.'