Fanfare (US)
*****
A thought-provoking journey couched in highest beauty, For Four is unmissable. Recommend
È FOR FOUR ? Bellevue Str Qrt ? OUR RECORDINGS 8.226943 (61:36) reviewed from downloads, 44.1 kHz, 16-bit.
BACH Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080 (excerpts). BLOMBERG For Four. PURCELL Fantasias: G; c. LOCKE Consorts of Four Parts: No. 2 in d; No. 3 in F. The Broken Consort: Fantasia in D. BYRD In Nomine. SCHOP Lachrymae Pavan. MORLEY Lamento. ANON Pavan. LOCKE Consort of Four Parts No. 3 in F. GUIDO MORINI Dido, Regina di Cartagine: Compianto di Didone.

Four period instrument specialists comprise the Malmö-based Bellevue String Quartet: Hannah Tibell and Alison Luthmers, violins; Rastko Rocnic, viola; and Judith-Maria Blomsterberg, cello. Four equally talented individuals making up a whole, a concept that underpins all of the music here, where pieces by composers from Matthew Locke to today celebrate dialogue in its many guises, the whole rooted in Bach. t is three “Contrapuncti” from Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge that punctuate the discourse. But the disc is launched by For Four by Hanna Blomberg (born 1990), a piece which, like the Byrd In Nomine, offers four very individuated “voices”. The parallel is immediately obvious, listening to the preternatural linear clarity of the Bellevue’s performance of the Byrd. The Blomberg begins quietly (a tremolo is so quiet it is only down to OUR’s superb recording that we can hear it). There is a timeless quality to Blomberg’s music, ethereal, difficult to grasp until the music starts to coalesce and another influence starts to creep in: that of Swedish folk music. The number four is not only referencing the number of players; of course, each instrument has four strings, and cross-string arpeggiations are used to generate energy. After that, the purity of Bach’s “Contrapunctus 1” from Die Kunst der Fuge feels refreshing, especially as the Bellevue vary their articulation of the theme, staccato offering a lift. Here, too, one can really appreciate the placement of each instrument in the recorded space, something that further emphasizes Bach’s linearity. Bach’s music is what the notes describe as the “central axis” of the program; it is fascinating to hear Bach’s counterpoint in direct juxtaposition with Purcell’s, in the latter’s Fantasia in G. These fantasias are Purcell with one foot in his past, and so the inclusion of full Consorts in Four Parts by Matthew Locke is entirely apt: No. 4 follows, cast in F and comprising four movements (Fantasia, Courante, Ayre, Saraband). I love the “open” tone of the Bellevue Quartet in the opening Fantasia, and the way they emphasize the vulnerability of the sparer textures and the “sighing” gestures. Even within this one movement, Locke creates an almost operatic field of emotions (no surprise, given the excellence of his Cupid and Death: a 2022 staging at Versailles by Ensemble Correspondences and Sébastien Daucé was unforgettable). The Courante is sprightly; again there is that sense of “lift” to the performance (and how carefully articulated the rapid decorations of line and cadence). A more reflective, courtly Ayre contrasts with the final (surprisingly active) Saraband.

Seven individual pieces separate Locke’s Consorts Nos. 4 and 5. Another Purcell Fantasia launches the sequence, now cast in a deeply lachrymose C-Minor and containing the most remarkable harmonies, as if the sinewy lines were being strained to their limit, each harmonic arrival offering only partial relief. A miraculous melding of pain and (some) lightness, it acts as a reminder of the levels of pathos of which Purcell was capable. Hearing this music on string quartet performed with this level of historical awareness moves the modern quartet so close to the viol consort for which these pieces were intended; something also clear in Byrd’s In Nomine, after a passage in the Benedictus of John Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas (if you don’t know it, go seek The Tallis Scholars’ performance under Peter Phillips: see Fanfare 09:6). In Byrd’s piece, counterpoint is absolutely masterly, taking the Taverner, and a cantus firmus plainchant of Gloria tibi Trinitas, to heavenly heights.

In a very interesting way, this recording “plays” the idea of individuality within a collective: a rare, and brief, Lachrimae Pavan by Johannes Schap (c. 1590-1667) highlights solo line and uses echo to introduce new ones (the spatial aspect of OUR’s recording comes into its own here). This cedes to Thomas Morley’s Lamento (more properly, Fantasia à 2, “Il Lamento”) where two instrumental voices create the most delicious dissonances. There is a Locke insert, a single movement (Fantasia in D) from The Broken Consort, its sighing phrase-endings most affecting. The longest of the single-movement pieces is by our friend Anonymous: a pavane of “circa” the 16th-Century. We don’t know much about it, then, but it is extraordinarily beautiful, and, after the previous two pieces, feels remarkably full, even indulgent, of texture. At just shy of six minutes, it becomes an immersive space, its breadth emphasized by the brevity of the Locke and Schop before it. It is Bach who closes this sequence, though, Contrapunctus 9 from Die Kunst der Fuge, generally taken at quite a lick and nicely active here. Again, that individuality of parts works so well; the interaction of lines, the contrasts, emerge beautifully against, say, a more monochrome keyboard …

When we do land once more on Locke, the effect is magical, a heightening of intensity after the radiant close of the JSB, the scrunchy dissonances of the opening “Fantasia” making even finer effect, while the almost orchestral Courante (in its arresting anacrusic gestures, like a viol-oriented call-to-arms) seems of astonishing imagination, the Bellevue presenting it as absolutely freshly-minted. Those anacruses are reframed to open the gentle, far more courtly “Ayre”. A fresh, sprightly “Saraband” closes.
For once, Bach does not have the final word, just the penultimate one, with “Contrapunctus 14,” its sweet dissonances aligning it with Locke, perhaps, its close a magnificent statement of what could have been, but was not to be. Again, the Bellevue’s articulation is perfectly considered and effective. The final piece, though, is a contemporary work by Guido Morini (born 1959), an instrumental passage from his 2023 opera, Dido, Regina di Cartagine. While Morini is himself very much of today, his background is in early music performance, and here we have a melding of Renaissance and Baroque with the contemporary, continuing the idea of independence of part, of Affekt, and presented with real luminosity by the Bellevue players.
When performing this sequence live, the Bellevue Quartet is seated in the round, the lights dimmed: a state of performer/audience communion and space for reflection (something close to what Manchester Collective works with here in the UK, and it is very effective). In terms of the disc, it is best to listen straight through to really experience the sense of composers and eras in dialogue. A thought-provoking journey couched in highest beauty, For Four is unmissable.

The Bellevue Quartet’s other projects sound just as interesting as For Four: there is one couched in Shakespeare (Full Fathom Five), one inspired by Nature (Naturally!) and Nordic Bridges (exploring the nexus between folk and concert music). Colin Clarke, September 3 2026

Colin Clarke is a freelance Classical Music Journalist. Master's Degree focused in Analytical Musicology from King's College London and a BMus (Hons) from the University of Surrey.