Pranav Ranjit | John Blackwood McEwen - String Quartet No. 6 "Biscay" (Score Video) @towardthesea_ | Uploaded November 2022 | Updated October 2024, 11 hours ago.
00:00 I. Le Phare
07:41 II. Les Dunes
12:58 III. La Racleuse
Performed by the Chilingirian Quartet (Levon Chilingirian, violin 1; Charles Sewart, violin 2; Asdis Valdimarsdottir, viola; Philip de Groote, cello)
Many thanks to José del Avellanal Carreño for scanning the score.
John Blackwood McEwen (1868-1948) was a Scottish composer and educator, most notable for his decades-long tenure teaching composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In my view, his cycle of seventeen string quartets is one of the most accomplished of the late Romantic era. For more information about McEwen, see my score video of his fourth string quartet: youtu.be/Dvk6pWg_VAc
McEwen's "Biscay" string quartet, numbered as his sixth (although actually his eighth, he considered the first two of little value), was inspired by the French promontory of Cap Ferret on the Bay of Biscay. The pulsating first movement, "Le Phare", depicts the famous lighthouse there that still stands today; the second, titled "Les Dunes", is an evocative, impressionistic portrayal of the massive Dune du Pilat; and the lively third, "La Racleuse" (from the French "racler", meaning "to scrape") is suggested by the violinist Levon Chilingirian to "refer to a ‘grating’ violinist that McEwen had come across." Like most of his output, McEwen's sixth string quartet is a very fine and unduly neglected work; I am analyzing it briefly as part of my Master's thesis this fall, in an attempt to add to the very limited scholarship concerning this talented composer.
00:00 I. Le Phare
07:41 II. Les Dunes
12:58 III. La Racleuse
Performed by the Chilingirian Quartet (Levon Chilingirian, violin 1; Charles Sewart, violin 2; Asdis Valdimarsdottir, viola; Philip de Groote, cello)
Many thanks to José del Avellanal Carreño for scanning the score.
John Blackwood McEwen (1868-1948) was a Scottish composer and educator, most notable for his decades-long tenure teaching composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In my view, his cycle of seventeen string quartets is one of the most accomplished of the late Romantic era. For more information about McEwen, see my score video of his fourth string quartet: youtu.be/Dvk6pWg_VAc
McEwen's "Biscay" string quartet, numbered as his sixth (although actually his eighth, he considered the first two of little value), was inspired by the French promontory of Cap Ferret on the Bay of Biscay. The pulsating first movement, "Le Phare", depicts the famous lighthouse there that still stands today; the second, titled "Les Dunes", is an evocative, impressionistic portrayal of the massive Dune du Pilat; and the lively third, "La Racleuse" (from the French "racler", meaning "to scrape") is suggested by the violinist Levon Chilingirian to "refer to a ‘grating’ violinist that McEwen had come across." Like most of his output, McEwen's sixth string quartet is a very fine and unduly neglected work; I am analyzing it briefly as part of my Master's thesis this fall, in an attempt to add to the very limited scholarship concerning this talented composer.
