Members of the Kreutzer Quartet
Royal Academy of Music musicians
Metier mex 77209
Justin Connolly was born in 1933 and died in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. This is a double album of nine of his chamber works, amounting to just over two hours of music. It is a wonderful idea to combine the virtuosity of the Kreutzer Quartet with the fine talents of students from the Royal Academy in these totally brilliant performances.
Space will not allow for me to write about each piece. So here are some observations about works which especially attracted me. I would certainly highlight Ceilldh for four violins (yes, named after the Gaelic dance-gathering) from 1976 composed for musicians from the Yehudi Menuhin school and played on a visit to America. It falls into four connected movements, either of great energy, or as in the third called Night, something very still and evocatively beautiful.
The most substantial work is the composer’s last, a three-movement String Trio, which weighs in at almost twenty-five minutes. What the booklet essay describes as ‘extraordinary energy and fecundity of invention’ is apparent in the outer movements with their challenging, complex, atonal polyphony. The middle ‘calmo ed espressivo’ is not unlike the Night movement mentioned above, but throughout there is an emotional tension which resolves only at the very last moment of the ‘largamente’ last movement.
The ’plus’ of the CD title is the inclusion of seven musicians from the Academy. For example, Emily Su (violin) and Dmytro Fonariuk (clarinet) join with Neil Heyde (cellist in the Kreutzer Quartet) in the earliest work here Triad V which is described as ‘three views of similar events’ which, with careful hearing, can be grasped. Violaists Adonis Lau and Andrea Fages Saiz join Peter Sheppard Skaerved (viola in the Quartet) along with accordionist Alise Salina in the single movement (but divided into 13 short sections) Celebratio super Ter in lyris Leo. Not surprisingly perhaps, the title is in part an anagram of Lionel Tertis. It is a haunting and tense work which really connected with me.
In the light of this CD, it will not surprise you to know that Connolly played viola and often duetted with the translator David McDuff, and the solo viola work, Celebratio, is dedicated to him. It has contrasting moods but can be often lyrical and, like all the music of this album, always atonal but never serial.
As well as detailed descriptions of the music, there is also a fascinating ‘Personal reflection’ by cellist Neil Heyde, and various biographies, as always. Recordings were mostly made last year and are of excellent quality.
Review by Gary Higginson