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The Raphael Ensemble - a string sextet that also plays musi for fewer than six - has for nearly two decades fielded some of this country's best chamber musicians. Only the cellist Andrea Hess seems to have remained a constant, but with quite a few fine CDs to its credit, the group has maintained a profile as an exceptionally polished and sensitive ensemble. On Friday evening they gave one of the most enjoyable concerts I have been to in a long time.
They began with a sextet that Frank Bridge took a curiously long time - six years- to write, finishing it in 1912, before his music took a radical turn towards a more exploratory style. Not that the sextet shows any signs of labour - it is comfortable, in a warmly Brahmsian language, though less relaxed than Brahms's own sextets. The medium of three pairs of violins, violas and cellos is consummately handled (Bridge was a professional viola-player himself), without any dead wood in the textures, and a masterly balance of solo highlights against fuller passages. There's a particularly lovely duet for viola abd cello, which Louise Williams and Andrea Hess played with discreet relish. But perhaps the most individual movement is the slowish central one, ruffled in the middle by a scherzo that appears like a sudden wind at sea, only to be calmed in a hushed coda.
The real curiosity was Anton Arensky's Quartet in A minor, not for the usual two violins, viola and cello, but one violin, viola and two cellos. Arensky wrote it in 1894, after his Tchaikovsky's death - hence the darkness of the instrumental combination and the eerie spectre of church chant that haunts the whole work, providing a striking motto for the first movement and reappearing, to magical effect, during the last of the variations on Tchaikovsky's touching song "Legend" that form the pretty middle movement. The finale is bold and brief, alternating solemn chant with the same Russian folk tune that Beethoven used in his second "Rasumovsky" Quartet, which Arensky sets in vigorous counterpoint. James Clark, Louise Williams, Andrea Hess and Timothy Gill could hardly have played this intriguing. attractive work more beautifully.
David Adams and Ralf Ehlers rejoined the others after the interval for Dvorak's breezy String Sextet. The best-known music in the programme, it's a staple of the Raphael Ensemble's diet, and as all six players thrashed out its brisk closing chords, they might have been brushing themselves down with unanimous satisfaction after a particularly good meal.
Adrian Jack
Brahms String Quintets - No. 1, Op. 88 in F major No. 2, in G major. "These richly scored string quintets must rank among the finest works of Brahms' maturity. Both are marked by great compositional subtlety and organic cohesion. Their predominant mood is one of whimsical nostalgia, interrupted from time to time by more volatile flames of passion.
There's also an intensely introverted melancholy that comes to the fore in the slow movements. To convincingly project these aspects of the works is challenging enough for any ensemble. But the scores are also virtually orchestrally conceived, with numerous double stops yielding passages of tortuously difficult pitching.
The Raphael Ensemble seem to travel through these hurdles with ease and grace. The magnificent opening theme from the F major Quintet is warmly coloured and beautifully characterised, with an impressive range of dynamics - a quality that imbues all the other movements. Even the notoriously difficult first movement of the G major is miraculously in tune. Moreover, the ensuing Adagio is delivered with great poignancy, and there's an engaging lilt to the Allegretto.
In the traditions of the best chamber music playing, the Raphael Ensemble project a tremendous sense of enjoyment of the music - it certainly feels as if they are rediscovering masterworks afresh."
Joanne Talbot
Sublime reading of underrated Brahms. Alternatives: None of this standard.
Though less popular than Brahms's sextets, his two string quintets are rich and noble creations, now accorded the eloquent and passionate espousal they surely demand, in the capable hands of The Raphael Ensemble. Their playing is unerringly distinguished, and Hyperion's sonics defy criticism - a glorious offering.
Michael Jameson
"Superlatives become ephemeral and critical criteria moulder into hollow pedantry when applied to an issue of this stature. The Raphael Ensemble's account of Schubert's String Quintet joins a small but illustrious pantheon of truly exceptional recordings of this over subscribed masterwork. The Raphael's assets are mightily impressive; homogeneity of instrumental voicing, rock-solid intonation and ensemble. Hyperion's sound is sensational: inner voices are revealed with outstanding clarity and instrumental balance is faultless.....
Keenly responsive to the breadth and magnanimity of the Allegro, The Raphael have an intuitive grasp of the natural gait and eloquence of contrasting incident during the Adagio. Moreover, their chosen tempo is perfect, enabling the yearning discourse of the outer sections to unfold amid entranced stasis. The outraged central episode sounds awesome; fine engineering allows each strand of these histrionic obsequies to register with maximum impact. The Scherzo has galvanic motive verve, while the finale is aptly muscular, although darker premonitions are never deeply concealed. This is playing of unquestionable distinction...."
B.B.C. Music Magazine, October 1995.
"It is some time since there was a good new recording of Bruckner's only mature piece of chamber music; here is a very good one indeed, coupled with the Intermezzo movement that Bruckner composed as an alternative to the scherzo when the first performers found his original too difficult, and the prelude for string sextet hat Strauss wrote for his last opera.
The Raphael Ensemble deserve high praise and warm thanks for this ardent yet precise account of the work; every dynamic shading and phrase-mark has been carefully considered, yet the first impression is of spontaneity. The recording (St. George's Brandon Hill, Bristol) is atmospheric and unfailingly clear, with no artificial highlighting, and with the players close enough for bow to bite into string, yet set back sufficiently for sniffs and shuffles to be absent. The playing is wonderfully natural, with charm and wit at the close of the trio, and with the various tempos of the finale, (which is attacked from the Adagio without a pause) coherent and indeed happily convincing. Strongly recommended."
Hi Fi News And Record Review
"One's initial feelings about a sextet that is scored for two violins, two violas and two cellos is that one is in foe a dark, brooding, bottom-heavy exploration of the medium. Yet in Dvorak's Sextet in A major - certainly as played by the immensely accomplished Raphael Ensemble - there is nothing to justify that fear.
Instead, right from the very Schubertian opening of the expansive opening movement, one is aware of the crystal-like scoring and the clarity of vision which these young players bring. The two cellos played off each other wonderfully well, Andrea Hess in particular, revelling in lovely melody, her playing responsive to every nuance. In the Dumka we were witness to some fabulous playing, the lilting second violin of Catherine Manson giving the Gypsy music extra lift, followed by a beautiful example of Dvorak at his most noble in a broad theme of almost hymnal quality.
...(Bruckner's) most substantial chamber work...is his String Quintet in F major, written in 1878/9 just after the fifth symphony. It is a rarity, but undeservingly so.
And any thoughts that Bruckner the symphonist could not make a convincing quintet were dispelled in an inspiring and eye-opening performance by The Raphaels, pared down to two violins, two violas and a single cello.
Of course, being Bruckner, the unmistakable traits were there: the huge blocks of string sound; the repetitive, almost obsessive exploration of themes; the great crashing crescendos - all the intricate building blocks of the composer's almost architectural style. Yet, particularly in the opening movement, there is an almost Schubertian lightness of touch, a delicacy which these players wisely exploited.
After the grotesqueries of the Scherzo, with its wonderfully delivered pizzicato passages and moments of village-band innocence, the wide open spaces of the sublime Adagio comes in complete contrast. This fifteen minute movement is the work's core and here the playing moved to yet further heights of expression. In the meshing of the five instruments there surely was more of the symphony than the quintet, but the beauty of tone, the ringing radiance of the strings and surety of their intonation was that of a small group of players who know this music, and each other, backwards. It was a tribute to their musicianship that they were able to communicate that devotion directly to their audience.'
The Scotsman
Schenectady - When a music series opens with just a whiff of controversy, it stirs an audience to debate and provides unusual satisfaction. Formed in 1982, The Raphael Ensemble, six splendid young string players from England, is on its debut tour of North America. Raphael came to Union College Memorial Chapel on Thursday to ruffle a few feathers of concertgoers who have a notion that English performers are musically polite and traditional (read dull).
Anybody who thinks chamber music performances are static, staid events hasn't heard The Raphael.
The Schenectady Museum and Union College Concert Series opened its 1995/6 season of a dozen chamber concerts that looked traditional enough: Boccherini String Sextet in F Minor, Dvorak String Quintet in E Flat Major and Brahms String Sextet No. 2 in G Major.
All these are mainstream works that received anything but centrist performances. Intensely musical, yes. Ordinary off-the-shelf performances, no indeed.
The prolific Boccherini wrote quite a bit of chamber music, much of it formulaic and straightforward. Raphael's performance of the F Minor Sextet pushed the Boccherini envelope, not inflating the composer's modest gifts, but giving unusual life and powerful projection to the music. The opening allegro moderato movement had a merry bounce that hinted at dance. Even more dance-like was the minuet movement, simple in its form, and modest, but enormously engaging in this performance.
The Raphael filled the hall with romantic string sound in Dvorak's String Quintet (with an extra viola added to the usual string quartet) written on one of the Czech composer's visits to America and premiered in Boston on New Year's Day 1894. The quintet of performers dug right in - never stinting on lovely tone and propelling the music naturally forward. The scherzo was buoyant and beautifully melodic with fine solo cello work. The finale was notable for its crisp clarity and clean articulation.
The Raphael.....delivered a Brahms Second Sextet that might not have been up everybody's Brahms alley. The electric musicality of the performance captured all the drama and force of the piece, making a sound that was nearly equivalent to a chamber orchestra.
The ensemble didn't merely perform the Brahms, they possessed it, giving unusual transparency to the textures that can become thick and gooey under less attentive fingers.
People who adore Brahms usually respond to the lush romance of thick textures and quivery big vibrato string sound. Hearing the Raphael Brahms was like seeing a familiar painting with darkened varnish and sooty museum overlay removed. How new this sounds with such a musically fresh approach.
Rarely do you hear this Brahms sextet played with such clarity. Not for a moment did the players lose the lushness of the writing, but everywhere you could hear the inner voices. What comes as gush in other performances became genuine drama here.
In the first movement, the cello played forcefully a strong descending theme, maybe too powerfully, but in the context of the whole movement essentially and thrillingly dramatic. The finale in one of Brahms' most exciting last movements had the kind of focused energy that thrills and enlivens.
Albany Times Union - October 14 1995
RAPHAEL ENSEMBLE
BORODIN: Sextet in D minor (1860-61)
BRAHMS : String Sextet in G Op 36
SCHUBERT: Quintet in C D956
Cowdray Hall, Aberdeen
18 October 1999
FULL HOUSE FOR OPENING CONCERT
Review by Alan Cooper
ABERDEEN Chamber Music Club had a full house
for their first concert of the Millennium Season. The Raphael
Ensemble played Borodin's String Sextet in D minor.
Only two of its probable four movements have survived and the
first got a bright and breezy performance although the second,
rather short, left us somehow hanging in mid-air.
But then they continued with two of the most ample works in their repertoire, the Sextet in G opus 36 by Brahms and Schubert's Quintet in C, D956. The first violin and the lead cellist are particularly strong, full-toned players and made the best of the opening movement of the Brahms Sextet. Warm full-blooded playing and a transparency of texture that gave every part its full value made this memorable.
The real emotional punch, however, came with the Schubert Quintet. Hope and longing, anger and despair were all played out in this turbulent music. The Adagio and the Scherzo in particular, with their starkly contrasting passages of light and dark music, were almost disturbing in the fierce intensity of the playing.
Aberdeen Press and Journal
19 October 1999
MENDELSSOHN: String Quintets Nos 1 in A,
Op. 18
and 2 in B flat, Op. 87
Hyperion CDA 66993
BBC Music Magazine July 1998 Misha Donat
The first of Mendelssohn's two string quintets is scarcely less of a miracle than the more famous Octet which immediately preceded it. Mendelssohn was still only 17 (though the slow movement was composed some six years later, on the death of his teacher Edmund Rietz, as a replacement for the original minuet), and the work shows a mastery of the medium which no later composer could match. It is true that its scherzo returns to the fleeting, transparently textured style of the corresponding movement from the Octet; but the opening movement has a radiant serenity that was new to Mendelssohn's style, and the finale is an exuberant contrapuntal tour de force.
No less impressive is the B flat Quintet composed at the opposite end of Mendelssohn's short career. If the proportions of its finale are not entirely satisfactory (Mendelssohn always intended to recast the piece), the two middle movements are profoundly original: a delicate, tripping scherzo in slow motion and an impassioned Adagio in the minor.
The Raphael Ensemble gives fine, stylish performances of both these wonderful works warm and lyrical in the A major work, and with all the energy and elan the outer movements of the later Quintet demand. The sound is admirably clear.
New Yorker January 1999
Before 1998 fades further into memory, let's
offer a few words of hearty recommendation about some of the recordings
that most enriched the classical catalogue during the year. For
more refined chamber playing, turn to Mendelssohn's String Quintets
(Hyperion), as played, with great transparency, by members of
the Raphael Ensemble (one of the world's few full-time string
sextets).
- The New Yorker
BORODIN: Sextet in D minor
BEETHOVEN: Quintet in C Op 29
BOCCHERINI: "Minuet" from Quintet in E Op 13
DVORAK: Sextet in A Op 48
The Bath Chronicle, 20 January 1998
Review by Tim Bullamore
Superb ensemble
The civilised surroundings of this elegant
hotel provided the setting for what was more of a soiree than
a formal concert.
The Raphael Ensemble, whose string of recordings on the Hyperion
label are all of first class quality, provided a pulsating,
thrilling and emotional charged performance beginning
unusually but entertainingly with the two surviving movements
of Borodin's D minor sextet. Russian flair with romantic intensity
provided an exciting allegro and smooth andante.
With cellist and founder of the Raphael Ensemble
Andrea Hess stepping aside, it was time for Beethoven's C major
quintet. It may be invidious to single out any one of the remaining
musicians, but leader Anthony Marwood directed with consummate
ease; bringing his colleagues together with cohesion and careful
co-ordination.
The last movement (presto) was a brilliantly fast fugue; gripping,
edge-of-seat stuff.
The subtle use of the leader's mute and thoughtful
pizzicato from the cellos and viola in the minuet from Boccherini's
E major quintet led us to a climactic account of Dvorak's A major
sextet, the conclusion of a remarkable evening of music making.
STRAUSS: Prelude to Capricio
BRAHMS: Sextet in B flat major Op. 18
Wigmore Hall, London
20th September 1998
Strad Magazine January 1999
Review by Catherine Nelson
The lush sound of the string sextet is heard comparatively rarely, so it was a treat to find the Raphael Ensemble extolling the virtues of its repertoire at the Wigmore Hall. The sextet that forms the Prelude to Strauss's last opera Capriccio made a suitably dramatic opening. ...The players ... revelled in Strauss's Romanticism, producing a beautifully transparent texture. The theatrical changes of mood from consummate serenity to intense passion and back again were carried off well, the only quibble being that the overall sombre flavour was more weighty than the work's operatic context would suggest.
Equally inspiring was Brahms's Sextet in B flat major op.18. The opening cantabile theme of the Allegro ma non troppo was gloriously full-bodied. Later, perfect symmetry of phrasing between violinist Philippe Graffin and violist Louise Williams spoke much for their mutual sensitivity, and Williams shone again in the viola's melting solo at the end of the movement. Cellists Andrea Hess and Timothy Gill dealt expertly with the fiendish octave runs in the Andante, and after a delicate Scherzo the Rondo was vivacious and highly charged.
Throughout, these musicians' virtuosity as ensemble players was underlined by the exceptional textural clarity and their velvet-rich sound: a memorable performance.
Sextet scores with perfect balance
Raphael Ensemble
John Innes Centre, Norwich
Review by Frank Cliff
Eastern Daily Press
22 May 2000
Though its repertoire may not be all that extensive, the string sextet is a medium which has produced some of the finest chamber music, particularly of the late romantic period. The Raphael Ensemble produced an excellently balanced programme of three works in this genre for the recital on Saturday. Strauss's last opera, Capriccio, dates from 1942,, towards the end of the composer's life, yet his music is firmly rooted in the late 19th century. The ensemble began with the prelude; a magical performance of this lyrical work in which they were alive to every nuance of the richly textured score and captured perfectly its bittersweet melancholy
.They lavished equal care on Frank Bridges' E-flat Sextet, a fairly early work, first performed in 1912, more straightforward and less quirky than the later chamber music and well deserving of a more frequent hearing.
Finally, a truly memorable performance of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht, another early work whose post-Wagnerian romanticism bears little resemblance to the atonal music which was to come later.The Raphael produced perfect balance in every bar of this complex and difficult score, in as atmospheric a reading of Schoenberg's chamber music version of the symphonic poem as I have heard.
BORODIN: String Sextet in D minor
GLAZUNOV: String Quintet in A Op.39
TCHAIKOVSKY: String Sextet Op.70, Souvenir de Florence
Queen's Hall Edinburgh
1st December 1998
The Herald 3rd December 1998
Review by Conrad Wilson
It was easy to spot the galvanising factor in this concert, last in the BBC's Tuesday series devoted to Tchaikovsky and the music of Imperial Russia. Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence said plenty, and said it so stirringly that there was no doubt who was the hero of the evening.
But the programme, broadcast direct from the Queen's Hall on Radio 3, was also a triumph for the Raphael Ensemble, who tore into the music with the unstoppable energy it demanded but does not always get. Tchaikovsky adored Italy, and composed an adorable work about his favourite Italian city, and it was this quality of adoration that shone like sunshine through the Raphael's one is tempted to write Raffaello's playing.
Music which begins in mid-flow, as Tchaikovsky's string sextet seems to do, tends to maintain its momentum. The Raphael's performance had marvellous surge and drive, coursing from the cellos up though the violas to the violins, which ensured that every note tingled with life. But the bel canto beauty of the slow movement, a lovely homage to Bellini, was no less captivating in its floating of a haunting melodic line above a plucked accompaniment.
The two final movements, presented in almost
a single sweep, were similarly ardent, and similarly thrilling.
... the concert ended as it should have done, with Tchaikovsky
at full throttle.
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