Page 480 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK
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No. 3 was characterised by concentrated, dancing rhythms, spare harmonic effects in the middle
movement and gorgeously indulgent portamenti like whipped cream on a summer pudding. The players’
decisive, uniformly voiced dynamic hairpins were hair-raising. No. 4 was a whirlwind of musical ideas
that include a lyrical solo passage for cello, a quick-as-a-lick Allegro pizzicato and a finale reminiscent
of Pacific 231, but with automobiles.
The final concert was the longest of the three, with the last pair of quartets running half an hour apiece.
No. 5 is the crowd-pleaser: five accessible and entertaining movements with a will-o’-the-wisp Scherzo at
their centre and a foot-stomping Finale. Thence to the Sixth (1939): a work that anticipated a world on
the threshold of war. It is ominous but never bleak. The musicians were fuelled as much by the
inspiration of a composer who seemed finally to have reconciled himself to melody as by their own
adrenalin. Never were five stars more comprehensively earned.
