Coull Quartet 50th celebration, Unitarian Chapel, Warwick Sunday morning, 28 April 2024.

How exciting it must be to celebrate playing chamber music together for fifty years! Roger Coull and Philip Galloway were colleague students at the Royal Academy and formed the Quartet in 1974 - coached and mentored at the time by Sidney Griller (then leader of the Griller Quartet).  By 1975 their Purcell Room Concerts had attracted wide attention.  These featured works by Tippett, Britten and Walton;  the Quartet received coaching from both Sir Michael Tippett and Sir William Walton to prepare the Quartet for this career launch.

Their Warwick University residency began in 1977, lasting for 43 very productive years - productive in terms of the highly valued support they offered students players and student orchestras with their sectional interests, and hugely productive in terms of their considerable catalogue of recordings which include Schubert, Mendelssohn, Walton and local composer, Simpson.

Seldom has the Unitarian Chapel been so full on a Sunday morning, standing room only avoided – just! This first of three anniversary concerts at the start of the celebration began with Mozart, Puccini and Ravel.   The acoustic properties of the Unitarian Chapel are well known; the clarity of the opening movement of Mozart’s Quartet in B flat K589, outstanding. With careful negotiation of the tricky larghetto achieved - typical of Mozart’s demanding late quartets - the thrilling last movement in rondo form delivered the very balanced voices for which it is known.

Puccini’s memorial work I Crisantemi (the crysanthemums), a tribute to a dear friend, the Duke of Aosta who died suddenly in his early forties is a sublime, emotive work much of which was used in the composer’s opera Manon Lescaut.

Many in the audience had been attracted by the Ravel in the programme, his Quartet in F, currently one of the most popular chamber works. This rich and fascinating work shows the influence of Debussy’s work on Ravel’s compositions.  A dazzling scherzo – assez vif - très rythmé – and a thunderous opening to the last movement brought this first of the three events to a close.  Future dates are Sunday mornings 26 May and 30 June – not to be missed!