Britten String quartet no 3

 Day 30

Britten string quartet no 3 op 94

Maggini string quartet

It took me a while to get on the right wavelength with Britten. We did Noyes Fludde at school (I played a mixture of piano and handbells) and I was rather smugly superior about having to perform ‘children’s music’ - now I think that the piece is an absolute masterpiece. I heard Peter Pears sing the Nocturne in Norwich - I went to the concert to hear the Stravinsky pieces either side (I think that it was The Firebird and the Symphony of Psalms) and didn’t find any connection with the Britten - in fact I seem to reall that I rather pointedly sat on my hands during the applause - what a pompous youth I must have been!. But I do remember that Britten himself was in the audience and took a bow at the end - so I can at least say that I did see him in person.

Over the years I have come to appreciate more and more Britten. Peter Grimes is an extraordinary work (when Britten said is was ‘full of howlers’ he must have known he was just teasing) and among the other operas A midsummer Night’s Dream stands out. Among other pieces I would mention the Violin concerto, and who could overlook the folk song settings.

I’ve known the 2nd string quartet since university but I had never heard the 3rd quartet. It is his last major work, dating from 1976. Somehow I missed hearing the first radio broadcast and so this was an opportunity to catch up at last.

What a piece it is. Britten hadn’t written a string quartet for 30 years but right from the start you can tell that he is a master of the form - the instrumental writing, though requiring great virtuosity, is completely idiomatic and Britten achieves an astonishing variety of textures and effects - including at one point asking the viola to play arpeggios on the wrong side of the bridge! There is vigour in this music, which is all the more astonishing when you consider how ill Britten was when he wrote it. It is suggested that he couldn’t reach far enough to the top of large sheets of manuscript paper so he wrote a quartet instead which required less physical effort. But there is also wit and lyricism. 

The end is very moving - it is very much in the world of Death in Venice and contains several allusions to that score.  After the opening recitative it develops into a passacaglia - one of Britten’s favourite structures - and in very simply pure E major flows effortless to a quiet reflective end. The first performance was given only two weeks after Britten’s death - the atmosphere in the hall after the performance must have been quite magical.

Thanks to Mark again for the suggestion.