Vaughan Williams: Phantasy Quintet

“Roughly contemporary with the Fifth symphony, the Second Quartet is vintage VW, while the Phantasy Quintet breathes the air of the Tallis Fantasia. Both unfairly neglected works are performed with great affection here.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2008 ***

“Why isn't Vaughan Williams's Second Quartet part of the international chamber repertory? Played as eloquently as this it seems unarguably a masterpiece, one specifically of its time: 1942-3. Its first movement and deeply fraught Scherzo are as troubled as Shostakovich (whose music at moments, like a sudden stab of violence in that first allegro, it passingly resembles), while the misleadingly titled slow 'Romance' is haunted and haunting. It's tranquil but not at peace. It achieves an impassioned nobility and approaches serenity at the end, but something ghostly (it walks again in the Epilogue to the Sixth Symphony) refuses to be exorcised until the beautiful calm finale.
What these players do with the two much earlier pieces is no less remarkable. In them Vaughan Williams's style is audibly emerging from the influences (notably Ravel, briefly his teacher) that helped form it. In the First Quartet's opening movement an arching, lyrical melody that sounds like Vaughan Williams speaking with a French accent (and is it a French lark that ascends a little later?) has shed the accent by its return; something similar happens in the finale. But it was not an immature composer (he was 36, after all) who in the slow movement recognised a kinship with Fauré. And the Phantasy Quintet is audibly by the composer of the Tallis Fantasia, grateful to Ravel for giving him access to a deft rhythmic flexibility, but exploring his own unmistakable territory in the serenity tinged with poignancy of the slow movement. The Magginis and Garfield Jackson clearly love this music deeply; they play it with great beauty of tone and variety of colour and with passionate expressiveness.
The ample recording allows both grand gestures and quiet intimacy.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Splendid in both the Vaughan Williams and the Watkins, the Aronowitz Ensemble probe deeply into the Elgar's elegiac slow movement, and there are some nice 'ghostly' (Elgar's own description) touches in the first movement...the recorded sound is lovely.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2010 *****

“The Elgar Piano Quintet, the most ambitious of his three late chamber works, has rarely sounded so cogent as here… The Spanish flavour of the second subject is especially attractive. The slow movement is here gloriously rich in its very Elgarian lyricism, while the finale refers back to earlier themes, offering a satisfying conclusion. ...superb playing and finely honed recording.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2010

“There's virtuosic playing from the young Aronowitz Ensemble on their first disc...The seven-strong ensemble's repertoire choice, a balance of old and new, proves satisfying...The players' exuberance keeps English nostalgia at bay and all stays in keen, bright focus.” The Observer, 31st January 2010