Classical home listening - Penderecki, Fauré and more

The Guardian 0

The late Polish composer’s chamber music is a treasure trove for the Tippett Quartet; Malcolm Martineau concludes his stellar Fauré series; and to the river with Radio 3

• The many musical personalities of Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020), whether vigorous modernist or heartfelt post-Romantic, shine in the chamber music he wrote across his lifetime. The Tippett Quartet’s new album, Penderecki: Complete Music for String Quartet/ String Trio (Naxos), recorded at St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford, in 2020, demonstrates this Polish composer’s versatility and should be on every quartet’s repertoire list.

Penderecki himself was an accomplished violinist, an asset you sense in the way he explores the sonic possibilities of violin, viola, cello. The First Quartet (1960), with its rattles, taps and dry, percussive pizzicatos, shows his debt to his European avant-garde comrades Xenakis and Berio. No 2 (1968) is more integrated, organic, building up to a showy climax and with a distinct sense of humour. Penderecki wrote a string trio before attempting his Third Quartet, “Leaves from an Unwritten Diary” (2008), lyrical and melancholy, with his short, two-movement Fourth Quartet following in 2016. This last may have an unfinished feel – did he plan to write more? – but the Tippett Quartet’s album, in every respect, is whole and rewarding.