Tchaikovsky

String Quartet No 3. Souvenir de Florence'. Four Early Pieces

Endellion Quartet (Andrew Watkinson, Ralph de Souza vns Garfield Jackson va David Waterman ye) with 'Timothy Boulton va 'Robert Cohen vc CRD CRD3502 (77' • DDD)

Quartet — selected comparison:

Borodin Qt (1194) (TELD) 4509-90422-2

No heart-on-sleeve Tchaikovsky here but the Endellions are still persuasive

This disc completes the Endellions' Tchaikovsky set. The elegiac Third Quartet shows a typically spirited approach, with wide-ranging expression. The great Andante funebre e doloroso has sometimes sounded more doleful at the start (it certainly does in the Borodin Quartet recording) but in this version the music keeps moving, as Tchaikovsky asks, and the consoling second theme is most beautifully characterised. The lengthy first movement is splendidly sustained — though here again the

Borodins are more eloquent — and the Scherzo and finale have an infectious physical energy.

Souvenir de Florence receives an equally convincing performance: one is more surprised than usual at the title when the playing stresses the music's Russian character so effectively. The textures seem especially clear and this is achieved while maintaining a dark, rich sextet sound: I was aware that even in this comparatively lightweight work there's a distinct undertow of Tchaikovskian melancholy. The four early pieces —tiny, the longest lasting barely two minutes — are charming, and played here with elegance and wit. Duncan Druce