Graham Whettam CD reviews
The Strad - Jan 08 More than 30 years separate these two string quartets by British composer Graham Whettam, who died in August aged 79. The Carducci Quartet premiered the Fourth Quartet in 2001, and the First appeared in 1968. There is a meditative quality to the earlier work, despite its abundant vigour, born of its long, slow soliloquies for individual instruments and its contemplative duo-writing in the last movement. The players here are, as it happens, peculiarly suited to this movement, being two married couples, and they play it beautifully, clear and sweet toned, spinning out the long, weaving lines with languid grace.
Graham Whettam had no formal musical education. This did nothing to hinder his productivity. There have been five symphonies, four string quartets and various pieces for chamber music. This brings us neatly to the disc in question. It is stunningly recorded and has a wonderful plangent immediacy. The first string quartet was commissioned by Jack Brymer. It is dedicated to the composer-conductor Eugene Goossens who was a house guest of Whettam’s at the time of writing. The music moves from stabbing lyricism that has parallels with Tippett to the sort of desolation associated with Warlock's The Curlew. The drive and urgency carries over to the central scherzo. The finale has the character of a tombeau - gravely reflective, emotion drained. It is impressive for a concentration that fitfully recalls the last two Bridge quartets. It ends in a mystical interplay of high harmonics. Having written an Oboe Quartet for Victor Swillens in 1960 Whettam returned to the medium a decade or so later. Again Whettam impresses with eldritch writing which moves between the singing heart of the oboe as reflected in the Arnold concerto to a Curlew like loneliness. The final Rondo skips along in a macabre cavort that might well recall the King Pest movement in Lambert's Summer's Last Will but crossed with the bagpipe skirl to be expected from the title. The Fourth Quartet's opening movement evolved from playing with the Arts Council's initials in music. This piece is concentratedly dissonant and more powerful than the other two works. Whettam likes long scherzos and that is what we get. This one is gritty, aggressive, macabre and flies along with a strong wingbeat. After a predominantly morose Passacaglia lit by an astringent cantabile comes a Rondo-Finale. This is again borne along by muscular and athletic propulsion. Even so, there is an enchanted still centre - quietly whistling, almost self-effacing, gently chafing. This rises to extended and memorable dominance in the last whispered three minutes. This will certainly appeal if you already have the two Redcliffe Whettam CDs. Beyond that it should also be sought out if your tastes already centre around Frank Bridge, his later quartets, Oration and There is a Willow and the music of Bernard van Dieren and Eugene Goossens. As ever these are appallingly rough approximations but will give you some idea of what to expect. Rob Barnett
A melancholy aspect attends this new CD, for it was received for review just a week or so after the death of Graham Whettam was announced. This remarkable British composer was 80 years old in the very month of his death in September, and his individual character and approach to his tasks on more than one occasion tended to place him to one side of the stream of contemporary British music. Graham Whettam was a born composer, first and foremost, and it has been an enlightening experience to encounter these three works in such excellent performances, for their musical content is high. They are all deeply serious works at heart and although they do not abjure occasional lightness of touch they equally do not reveal their qualities so readily at first. The language is modern, of course, but with traditional modes of expression such as tonality, structural cohesion and writing which does not attack the instruments, so I have found myself returning again and again to these works, discovering new things that previously I had missed. The recording is excellent and the composer himself provided informative Booklet Notes. This is a valuable and highly recommendable CD, a worthy commemoration of a fine and unjustly neglected British composer.
These quartets recorded in celebration of the 80th birthday of a self taught English composer are welcome offerings by a fine string quartet (its members two young married couples !) which is clearly determined to escape the well worn path of the over-recorded canon of masterworks. In the impressive website of his own publishing house Meriden Music, the prolilfic composer Graham Whettam (1927 - 2007*) publishes over 75 of his own works. He explains there that his early influences were Bartok and Mahler, and he found his own 'voice' by listening self-critically to his works played by eminent musicians and orchestras. Of those quartets recorded here, I enjoyed best the first (1960/67) and was impressed by the playing of the Carduccis and the perfect recording by Thomas Hewitt Jones in an excellent church ambience at Leonard Stanley in the Cotswolds.
Well constructed in three movements, rather conservative for its time, the string quartet is followed on the CD by an oboe solo played by the feisty Jennie-Lee Keetley without pause (a nice touch) to open the second of these three quartets. But, against the grain and in my view unwisely, Whettam responded with "advanced playing techniques in vogue at the time" for the oboe as specified in the commission (with a few strings glisses etc thrown in).
But it is good to have music to hear that is diligently put together and completely unknown; any one of these pieces would find a welcome as a novelty in a chamber music recital.
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