CD Naim The Eberle Quartet: Gates, Bridge, Barber

1997

Eberle Quartet:

Jennifer Gibbs - vioara
Daphne Moody - vioara
Muriel Daniels - violoncel
Moira Alabaster - viola

Philip Gates: String Quartet No. 1 In A Minor
Frank Bridge: Three Idylls
Frank Bridge: Noveletten
Samuel Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11

Recorded at The Jacqueline du pre' Music Building, St Hilda's College, Oxford, January 1997
Mastered by Julian Vereker

I began my listening with Frank Bridge’s Idylls – an adorable triptych dating from 1906 (his First Quartet was completed the same year). The pity is that, for all these newcomers’ evident sympathy and dedication, their playing falls uncomfortably short in terms of discipline and ingratiating tonal lustre by the side of the Coull or Brindisi Quartets (the latter group on Conifer, 5/91 – nla). The Eberle’s advocacy of the same composer’s often prophetic Novelletten (1904) is to be applauded (the work is not otherwise to be found on the Gramophone Database), but, alas, their realization is again rather lacking in the necessary refinement and entrancing fluidity Bridge’s superbly accomplished quartet writing surely deserves. Nor is the recorded sound of the most flattering.

In the first movement of the marvellous Barber Quartet, the Eberle’s comparatively loose-reined conception is, to my ears, wanting in true drama and grip; thus we find that tensions and momentum slacken perilously with the arrival of the gorgeous, ‘liturgical’ second subject. Next to the burnished splendour and heady interpretative insight of my chosen comparative rivals in this repertoire, the Eberle leave a disconcertingly cautious impression. They begin their programme with the highly accessible String Quartet No. 1 in A minor by Philip Gates (no biographical information supplied, I’m afraid). Inspired by the composer’s interest in Celtic poetry and penned just over three years ago, its unashamedly modal-pastoral idiom pays open homage to such composers as Vaughan Williams, Howells and Moeran.
I should add that Naim’s attractively designed booklet contains a substantial and thoughtful essay by Francis Pott.' [ gramophone ]