23rd January 2025: Maxwell String Quartet

The Maxwell Quartet introduced themselves to a packed audience with their own arrangements of ancient Celtic psalms followed by Scottish folk songs and dances, and culminating in a beautiful setting of William Byrd’s motet “Ave Verum Corpus”.  This intriguing first half ended with a contemporary composition by Edmund Finnis in which he creates an interesting sound world using harmonics and bowing flautando.

The Maxwells triumphed with their brilliant programming by performing Beethoven’s Quartet in A minor, Opus 132 in the second half of the concert. This masterpiece contains many unusual harmonies some of which are created by Beethoven’s conscious use of the Lydian mode. Thus the audience were conditioned in the first half to accept pentatonic intervals and church modes in the second half of the concert.

The performance of the Maxwell Quartet was sensitive and immaculate throughout, though I would have liked a little more weight in the upper strings in the Beethoven. This is a notoriously difficult work to perform and the Maxwells did us proud.   

Raymond Greenlees