THE BRUSSELS STRING QUARTET
DESIRE DEFAUW (First Violin) ; BORIS PECKER ; JAMESLOCKYER (Viola); EMILE DOEHAERD (Violoncello)
Moderato semplico ; Menuetto e trio ; Andantino con moto ; Adagio Allegro
(First Performance)
THE members of the Brussels String Quartet are well known already as Soloists, and most of them have been playing together in various Chamber Music combinations since the War. M. Desire Defauw , the Leader, is Director of Concerts at the Conservatoire in the city from which the Quartet takes its name. On the Quartet's reappearance some few months ago, the members' playing was very warmly commended for its fine tone and admirable
"team" spirit.
THEY are playing first a new work, still in manuscript, written two years ago by a woman composer who, in spite of her name, is Welsh.
Mrs. Marillier has composed also some songs, which have been sung by John Coates , and a Light Opera. She does not adopt an ' ultra modern ' idiom in this work ; as she puts it. she finds very ' 'advanced' harmonies useful when she wants to suggest vagueness and indecision, but for the expression of the moods of this Quartet she turns to tho idiom of the Composers who are beloved as the founders of Chamber Music-Mozart and Haydn. That does not mean that she imitates them, but that she has tried to bring out in her music the qualities of melodiousness and freshness that gives us such enjoyment in the older masters' works.
The Quartet is in four Movements. The First moves at a moderate pace ; tho Second, following the ' classical ' is a Minuet; the third, the Slow Movement, has two portions, in varying speeds ; and the Fourth isenergetic, gay and exhilarating.