Alexander Goehr, "String Quartet, No. 3, Op. 37"

-- Liner Notes from Wergo 60093 --

String Quartet, No. 3, Op. 37
1. Non troppo allegro, con sensibilita
2. Allegretto e vivace
3. Introduzione: Lento molto sostenuto; Allegretto moderato, un poco leggero ma cantando

Lindsay String Quartet
Peter Cropper & Ronald Birks, violins - Roger Bigley, viola - Bernard Gregor-Smith, cello

Despite the difference of medium, the works recorded here bear out this observation of Alexander Goehr about his own music since 1976, when the Third String Quartet was first performed by the Lindsay Quartet in London. The Quartet is, to date, his last work to be ordered serially; following a period of preoccupation with modality, the Kafka cycle approaches a tonal conception of musical order. But the listener will more readily (and rightly) hear the continuity of an individual way of presenting musical ideas and even, since we are not here concerned with a Stravinskian wearing of historic masks, with continuity in the ideas themselves.

In the Quartet, Goehr's adherence to formal designs from the classic-romantic tradition contains not the slightest hint of archaism or nostalgia. Forms such as sonata, scherzo, rondo, arise from the nature of the material. Instead of breaking down the quartet into a group of soloists (like many modem quartets including to some extent Goehr's own No. 2 of 1967), Goehr rejoices in the homogeneity of the ensemble and the fascinating results of interweaving its parts. Much of the intimate yet vibrant colour of the work derives from Goehr's exploitation of overlapping registers to create an intense but never strident colloquy, at once intellectually absorbing and texturally sensuous.

The ear is struck at once by the preponderance of triads in the classically-moulded opening theme. The Quartet is not tonal, and the material is still transformed serially; but the clarity of chording guides the listener towards recognition, not only of the fact that an idea is recurring transformed (which can be done through rhythm) but of the nature of the pitch transformation itself. Hence the recurring rondo theme is easily picked up, as is the reprise of the sonata-form first movement. Between these two movements, both in the kind of tempo Brahms might have marked arnabile, the brittle scherzo provides an excellent contrast.

ALEXANDER GOEHR is one of the leading figures in British musical life today. The son of the conductor Walter Goehr, he was born in Berlin, but was brought to England when only a few months old. Nearly thirty years on, he is still regularly tagged with the label of 'member of the Manchester School', the group of fellow students at the Royal Manchester College of Music which also included Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, John Ogdon and Elgar Howarth. After Manchester and a year in Messiaen's master-class in Paris, Goehr worked as a copyist and translator, then during the 1960s as a producer of orchestral programmes for the BBC. He was musical director of the Music Theatre Ensemble between 1967 and 1972, and is a fluent and stimulating broadcaster. In parallel with all his other activities, he has also - perhaps to his own surprise - entered the academic world, becoming Professor of Music first at Leeds University and then in 1976 at Cambridge, where he has brought about a radical transformation of the syllabus of the music faculty.

Goehr's catalogue of some forty-five opus numbers includes an opera, Arden Must Die, a triptych of music theatre pieces, Naboth's Vineyard, Shadowplay and Sonata about Jerusalem, and two large-scale choral and orchestral works, Sutter's Gold and Babylon the great is fallen. Among his orchestral works are a Little Symphony, a Symphony in One Movement and a Sinfonia, concertos or concertante pieces for violin, cello and piano, and most recently two substantial Etudes for orchestra. His music is widely performed and broadcast, and in 1982 Unicorn Records released their recording of two of his orchestral works Metamorphsis/Dance and the Romanza for cello and orchestra. A book of articles and interviews, edited by Bryan Northcott, entitled The Music of Alexander Goehr, is also available, published by Schott.

Goehr's works all show a strong sense of musical logic: 'I write music', he has said, 'in order that people can follow from bar to bar and know that certain notes follow and that others don't.' His personal voice has evolved in a series of syntheses: between Schoenberg's contrapuntal outlook and Messiaen's harmonic thinking; between twelve-note serialism and various types of modal writing; between the musical language of the present and forms of the past like chaconne, variation and fugue. Techniques of elaboration play an important part, but this in itself implies a simple starting-point, and the 'still centres' of his works provide many of his most striking passages. His career as a whole seems also to have reached a kind of 'still centre', a nodal point, some six years ago with the composition of a very simple 'white-note' setting of Psalm IV for female voices. This was followed by two string pieces, a Fugue and Romanza, elaborating the same material, and then by an increasing flow of other works which now seems to be leading the way towards his second opera. -- Anthony Burton (1983)

Wergo Records, London, gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust.

This recording was made at the Concert Hall, Cambridge, on 19 and 20 June 1982

James Burnett, Producer
John Bower, Sound Engineer
Cover designed by Lynette Williamson
Sleeve printed in England by Robert Stace and Co. LM.
Record pressed in Germany by TELDEC
Music published by Schott & Co. Ltd., London