Telyn Quartet
Southwell Methodist Church
The Telyn Quartet (Tabitha Appel, Alma Vink, Isobel Neary-Adams, Seth Collin) is a young string quartet based in the UK, comprising students of David Takeno, Arisa Fujita and Louise Hopkins. They have received coaching from members of the Brodsky Quartet, the Lindsay Quartet and the London Haydn Quartet. They are currently on the professional mentorship scheme ChamberStudio UK. They appeared at the Southwell Music as String Apprentices. They take their name from ‘telyn’, which means ‘harp’ in Welsh. This is because Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 10, Op. 74, nicknamed ‘The Harp’, was the first piece they properly worked on as a quartet, at the Wye Valley summer residency in Wales.
As might be expected from their CV, the quartet played with youthful exuberance, enjoyment, and remarkable precision. Their choice of opening piece was therefore highly appropriate, Benjamin Britten’s Three Divertimenti, written when the composer was only 20. The quartet made a vigorous start to the opening march with lovely ensemble, ebullient playing, and incredible concentration. They smiled gently at each other as they played. They played the second movement, a relaxed Waltz in a lovely romantic style. There was a lightness of touch as they brought out the themes beautifully. The final movement, a burlesque, began with frenzied strings and precise playing, bringing out the serendipitous nature of the piece. After an explosive climax, the music returned to the fizzing frenzy of the start. The sudden ending brought indulgent, amused applause.
Elizabeth Maconchy (1907 – 1994) deserves to be better known. She was the first woman to chair the Composers Guild of Great Britain and became President of the Society for the Promotion of New Music when Britten died in 1976. She was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1987. She wrote 13 string quartets, the subject of a Listening Service on BBC Radio 3, and she was Composer of the Week in 2024. Yet it appears that her complete string quartets have only been recorded once. So it was good to hear the Telyns performing her String Quartet No. 4. The viola player Isobel Neary-Adams introduced the work, which is in four movements but was played as one continuous movement: ‘It’s fast, but you’ll know when we get to the end.’ The music was tightly structured, based on a single short theme, reminiscent of Shostakovich’s use of the short DSCH theme in his string quartets. The most obvious musical influence is Bartók, but Maconchy has her own voice in the fierce debate between the fractured themes. The Telyns expertly illustrated the composer’s statement, ‘for me, the best music is an impassioned argument.’ They ended the piece with ecstatic joy, with a romantic melody on the first violin.
After a brief tuning break, the quartet returned with a much better-known piece, Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major. Cellist Seth Collin introduced it as part of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. He said that the colours and textures of the piece were novel for the time; in this performance, the Telyns brought out both these elements superbly. The piece still sounds intensely modern, although not in an avant-garde sense. The opening movement had moments of serene joy and passionate ecstasy, with much more impressionistic imagery than in the previous two pieces. The quartet played with poise and passion. In the second movement, the quartet explored the considerable range of Ravel’s invention and restless harmonies. They controlled the dynamics beautifully, and there was a remarkable range of orchestral textures and colours from just four players. The third movement began with a pensive viola theme and heart-stoppingly beautiful key changes. The quartet built up a magical atmosphere which gradually morphed into a nostalgic restatement of the main theme. A downward motif from the cello brought us into a glittering new world, with lovely legato playing at the end. The final movement featured fiercely rhythmic playing, but we were never far from a moment of joy. The audience applauded warmly at the end and seemed reluctant to let the quartet leave. Hopefully, we will see a lot more of this fine young quartet in the future.
Performers
The Telyn Quartet
Tabitha Appel violin
Alma Vink violin
Isobel Neary-Adams viola
Seth Collin cello
Repertoire
Benjamin Britten Three Divertimenti
Elizabeth Maconchy String Quartet No. 4
Maurice Ravel String Quartet in F Major
Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening
The Nave, Southwell Minster
Kathyrn Tickell is folk music royalty. She has been performing for 40 years and has been awarded an OBE and the Queen’s Medal for Music. She won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year twice. She was joined on Saturday by her band, The Darkening. The band takes its name from an old Northumbrian word for twilight, celebrating Tickell’s Northumbrian heritage as a piper and fiddle player. Her band on Saturday were Amy Thatcher on accordion, Tim Bloomer on guitar, Joe Truswell on drums and Stef Connor on vocals and lyres. Tickell’s pipe and fiddle playing was magnificent throughout, sometimes spiky and baroque, sometimes wailing and banshee-like, sometimes verging on progressive rock (a good thing in the opinion of this blog!) Tickell was a relaxed and compelling presence, taking care to introduce the songs and put them in context.
An early highlight was Caelestis, which Tickell said was based on a Latin inscription on Hadrian’s Wall. Tickell said she was surprised to discover that the wall was Roman, and multicultural as it had drawn soldiers from Europe, North Africa, Syria and Lebanon. The song was equally multicultural, with a Middle Eastern-sounding theme on guitar and pipes. There was a vocal duet between Thatcher, with a lovely contralto voice, and Conner with a light soprano voice, creating a spectral atmosphere.
Tickell celebrated much more recent Northumbrian history in The Waltz, which harked back to her grandfather’s family dancing tradition. Thatcher provided a splendid clog dance with intricate steps, sometimes almost leaving the ground. Tickell then asked the audience if you could dance in a church. The audience seemed to think that you could. She invited the audience to sing along with the chorus of In My Northumbria, which celebrated Northumbria’s good and bad points, depending on what weather you prefer. The song ended with a gorgeous a cappella trio of the three female voices. A more poignant event in Northumbrian history was referenced in Sycamore Gap, a mournful lament for the loss of the tree on Hadrian’s Wall that was chopped down by vandals in 2023. Tickell said curlews nested near the tree, and Joe Truswell triggered samples of the birds as an evocative backdrop. It was easy to imagine Tickell as a lone piper, playing at the gap where the tree once stood: a haunting image and song.
The second half began with a coup de théâtre, Tickell processing in from the back of the Minster playing her pipes. Six women from Festival Voices joined her in Stef Conner’s stunning arrangement of Blow the Wind Southerly. Women’s voices surrounded us as they gradually processed to the stage. At the end, the audience breathed a sigh of pleasure to mark a truly special moment. ‘I knew I was going to cry, ’ Tickell said. The women of Festival Voices also sang the world premiere of a new piece that Conner had written for the occasion, with words translated from the Old English poem The Ruin. This was a spellbinding performance of a poem that reminds us how fragile we are, and how great rulers and empires can crumble to dust. This sentiment is expressed in Shelley’s poem Ozymandias. Just Stop and Eat the Roses was a melancholy instrumental that became more joyful, reminding us to stop and smile when we aren’t quite feeling right. Tickell and Thatcher wrote One Night in Moaña after attending a festival in Galicia, Spain. The piece describes the traditional Muiñeira dance in 6/8 time and begins with a sliding scale representing musicians tuning. Conner demonstrated the shout used to activate the musicians, something like ‘Yee-hee-hee-hee-hee.’ Some of the audience were activated, too, clapping and whooping along. The concert ended with a stirring rendition of O-U-T Spells Out. Tickell explained that she had ‘clagged together’ some children’s rhymes to form a chant. She had meant it in all innocence, but she invited the audience to join in and consider it a call to throw out racism and intolerance. The concert had certainly felt inclusive, welcoming to both hardened folk fans and the folk curious. It was a wonderful evening.
Performers
Kathryn Tickell Northumbrian smallpipes, fiddle, vocals
Amy Thatcher accordion, synth, clogs, vocals
Tim Bloomer guitar
Joe Truswell drums
Stef Conner vocals, lyres
Click here for a review of the First Day of the Festival
