Tippett to Ride

There is not only Jeremiah:  for invitations of a different kind there is also my favourite Culture Vulture David (the most frequent commentator in this journal) who takes me along to London concerts that I might not have thought of myself, such as last night’s Piano sonata no 2 and 3 and String Quartet no 5 by Michael Tippett at the Wigmore Hall. ‘Oh my Gawd !’, said Giulietta. ‘Rather you than me !’ And I admit to thinking that I would probably fall asleep and leave in the interval…

Far from it however…

Now, I always say I like string quartets and noone ever believes me. ‘No of course you don’t’, is everyone’s response. ‘They are boring as hell’. But to me there is something infinitely more satisfying about the format of a string quartet than a symphony orchestra. For a start the music that comes from strings seems to me to be the most directly connected to human  emotions, as if it was fed into our souls by  intravenous drip. And when you have a quartet there is always a  fabulous battle going on, as if you are in the crossfire of a human relationship : you are privileged to be invited in  as the four string instruments are battling it out amongst themselves : a string quartet is a wonderful drama, whereas a symphony is too big, remote and  overblown to excite me in the same way. Of course it can’t be any old string quartet, it must be first class- and so it was last night, with the Heath Quartet, which David tells me is famous- the string quartet no 5 was written in 1990-91 when Tippett was 86 years old. Wow, I say- fabulous, fabulous, fabulous…David didn’t even know it, and he was also blown over…

see David'd write-up http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/tippett-retrospective-osborne-heath-quartet-wigmore-hall