Edinburgh Quartet

Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling

Keith Bruce

three stars

THE future of the very handsome and historic Church of the Holy Rude at the top of the town in Stirling as a place of regular worship has recently been the subject of vexed debate within the Church of Scotland as part of its essential economic restructuring, but there is no doubt that the building makes a very fine concert venue.

On Saturday lunchtime the weather even obliged as the Edinburgh Quartet began its recital, the torrential rain abating and sunshine flooding through the lovely stained glass to dapple the columns inside with colour. The kirk has a very good, if reverberant, acoustic, and the musicians set themselves a challenge in preceding a Sunday concert at home in the French Institute on the Royal Mile with this very different environment.

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Added to that is the fact that the quartet, not unlike the Stirling Church, is currently in a process of transition itself, and there was much to play for. Established members Catherine Marwood (viola) and Mark Bailey (cello) were here joined by guest leader Nicolas Dupont, who has filled that seat before, and at second violin by Gongbo Jiang, a Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduate who has become a very familiar figure as a busy freelance with Scotland orchestras.

On the main work of their short programme, the last of Beethoven’s Opus 59 Rasumovsky Quartets, the ensemble coherence often defied the ad hoc nature of the line-up, especially in the remarkable second movement with its waves of sound and pizzicato cello, sounding altogether more modern than its first decade of the 19th century composition. Dupont, a very charismatic player, ensured that its dynamics were echoed in the Allegro molto ending as well, although the pell-mell pace of the finale never let up.

Things had felt less assured, and sounded comparably less well-rehearsed, in the three Fantazias by Henry Purcell that had preceded the Beethoven. Composed for a consort of viols, the Doric Quartet has shown that they can sit well with Britten’s String Quartets, but if modern ears are familiar with them at all it is usually from early music ensembles. The lack of an historically-informed aesthetic from this group, paired with the acoustic of the venue, meant that much of their charm – and Purcell’s undoubted melodic gift – was lost in this performance.