Wood: String Quartets

To mark the centenary of the death of the Irish-born composer Charles Wood (1866–1926), this release presents the world premiere recordings of his String Quartet No. 2, "Highgate," and his String Quartet No. 4, "Harrogate," together with his "Variations on an Irish Folk Tune." This follows the release of Wood’s sixth and final string quartet, performed by the London Chamber Ensemble Quartet. The London Chamber Ensemble, which also features on this album, was founded in 2019 and is led by violinist Madeleine Mitchell. The ensemble has been praised for its ‘passionate and persuasive advocacy [and] compelling interpretations’ (Gramophone). Charles Wood was born into a family of singers and musicians in Armagh, Ireland. He sang in the cathedral choir, became an organist as a student, and gained experience as a string player, particularly as a violist. Wood began writing chamber music at the age of sixteen. A year later, he became one of the fifty founding students of the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Sir Hubert Parry. Wood, in turn, taught Ralph Vaughan Williams, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Herbert Howells, and Michael Tippett. Two years after graduating in 1890, Wood composed a second string quartet, which he nicknamed "Highgate" (presumably after visits to his brother at Highgate Grammar School). Although the quartet is slightly reminiscent of Brahms, it shows Wood’s emerging individuality. The unusual third movement, for example, uses a seven-bar ground bass combined with a strict theme for his own instrument, the viola. In 1912, he took a trip that led him to Harrogate and soon completed his fourth quartet—hence the nickname. Wood uses Irish folk melodies and dance tunes as thematic material, such as in the engaging, reel-like rondo theme of his finale.