Edinburgh Quartet Reid Concert Hall, Edinburgh **** With a third quartet pending, Robert Crawford's Quartet No 2, dating from half a century ago, made a timely reappearance this week in Edinburgh University's concert hall, where it shared a programme with a work by the hyperactive Ignace Pleyel, composer, piano-maker, publisher, pupil of Haydn and - perhaps his most valuable contribution to music - inventor of the miniature score.
But it was Crawford, a Scottish octogenarian of modest but keenly-crafted output, whose quartet commanded the closer attention. Essentially a study in gradual acceleration, its three movements proceeded from the slow, eloquent counterpoint of its opening adagio, in the course of which the instruments broke into contrasted pairs, through a light-footed intermezzo to a somewhat Brittenish finale, where a tantalising hint of The Turn of the Screw (a work dating from around the same time) seemed to haunt the music's restless rhythmic propulsion.
Lasting less than 20 minutes, the Edinburgh Quartet's performance was a model of succinctness, saying much in a minimum timespan. The Pleyel quartet, discovered in the substantial music library at Castle Fraser in Aberdeenshire, had rather less to communicate, except for an atmospherically mysterious little minor-key section in its closing minuet, particularly welcome in a work otherwise stuck firmly in the glue of the key of A major.
Like the Crawford, however, it was deftly played, even if it did not create an appetite for the rest of this travelling composer's large output, whereas Crawford's next quartet, due to be unveiled this year, is an event to look forward to.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article