When a quartet has
been together as long as has the Coull
then one can expect certain important
constituents to be firmly in place.
And this is just the disc to prove it.
These performances sound natural, unaffected
and full of clarity. They’re also naturally
balanced, both in terms of internal
dynamics and also in the case of the
recording, which is equally full of
warmth and clarity. St Paul’s, Birmingham,
sounds a congenial acoustic – or maybe
it’s just that Somm’s engineers have
captured it with care. Whichever, these
are fine performances and worthy of
your attention.
Take a listen to the
canny balance in the opening of the
Hunt – here and elsewhere you’ll
note the full complement of repeats.
Textures are light without becoming
tremulous or insubstantial; bowing is
thought through, as it must be, and
the first and second violins, Roger
Coull and Philip Galloway, have long
matched tonal blends. However familiar
these works are to the Coull – they
must have played them scores of times
– the results here are never less than
fresh and engaging; there’s a relatively
leisurely warmth that pleases. They
take the adagio at a flowingly expressive
tempo –it never sounds either harried
or lingering – with accents bearing
down with just the right weight. Here
one can appreciate how well integrated
the viola and cello strands are in a
performance of this kind. And in the
finale the tempo is fluid and flexible;
this isn’t hothouse playing, and neither
is it didactic. It’s, on the contrary,
pragmatic, sensitive and thoroughly
understanding.
The word natural comes
to mind in The Dissonance as
well. Again repeats are taken so that
the opening movement extends to past
the fourteen-minute mark. There are
many examples of repeatless traversals
on disc, from the Budapest through the
Amadeus et al, so one should welcome
a mainstream quartet essaying them.
They don’t overdo the dissonant opening,
preferring to make their points through
subtlety rather than overstatement.
Inner rhythms are tight yet sprung,
voicings always audible, and the dynamics
are well and convincingly shaped. In
the slow movement the impression one
gets is that they seek constantly to
respect the cantabile marking;
this is quite intensely coloured and
contoured and contrasted with a buoyantly
delivered Minuet and a clear eyed and
bracing Allegro finale with its repeats
intact. As a pendant we have the C minor
Adagio and Fugue, a piece that the Griller
Quartet did so well, and which shows
that the Coull can focus and refine
its concentration on even the smaller,
more compact pieces with equal success.
Billed as Volume 1
I think we can look forward to more
releases of this quality from a fine,
if I also think somewhat taken-for–granted
quartet. They certainly don’t take these
works for granted and the results are
commensurately elevated and musical.
An auspicious start.
Jonathan Woolf
Coull Quartet 
