Piatti Quartet. Lakeside, Nottingham, 12 June 2025, 5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

Photo Credit: Lakeside.

Piatti Quartet. Lakeside, Nottingham, 12 June 2025,

5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

“A cleverly devised programme, executed with precision and emotional depth.”

The Piatti Quartet included one of chamber music’s most popular pieces (Dvorak’s ‘American’ Quartet) in their Thursday night Lakeside programme.  Apart from that they lived up to their reputation as an ensemble boldly going where few have gone before. 

 In fact, they started the second half of their programme with the rarest of rare gems: the String Quartet in E minor written in 1934 by Irish composer Ina Boyle, whose works have been gathering dust until the recent recording made by the Piattis.  Like so many female composers of her time, she struggled to get her voice heard in a male-dominated musical world.  One of her teachers was Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose deeply expressive style and blend of lyricism and modal harmonies clearly inspired her, whilst leaving her free to create her own sound-world.  You’ll find Irish folk music embedded in this piece as well – but it’s perhaps the poignant serenity of the central slow movement which will live longest in the memory.

 The opening piece in their programme was also surprising to anyone who thought they knew the music of Anton Webern.  His name is associated with modernist music known for its brevity and strict adherence to the somewhat daunting twelve-tone system.  For anyone expecting this sort of thing, his youthful Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement) couldn’t have come as a greater surprise.   It’s full of romantic longing, steeped in his love for his future wife and inspired by the alpine landscapes which meant so much to both of them.  The Piatti’s interpretation was achingly tender, drawing out the sensuous harmonies with a delicate balance of passion and restraint.  There were several moments when individual instruments were allowed to soar above unusual accompaniments before melting back into the quartet’s rich textures.

 Even Mendelssohn’s Op. 12 Quartet was an interesting choice.  Written when the composer was only 20, it is often ignored in favour of his later chamber music.  However, it has a lot to offer and makes us remember that Mendelssohn achieved music maturity when only a teenager.  He was obviously inspired by Beethoven, especially in the serious Adagio opening.  However, the Piattis sharply characterised every movement: for instance, the Canzonetta’s playfulness and shimmering fairy-tale lightness.  The finale was supercharged with energy, particularly the fugal passages and the composer’s ingenious recall of earlier themes which so satisfyingly bind the work into an organic whole.

 Their concert ended with one of the best-know pieces in the repertoire: Dvorak’s Op. 96 ‘American’ Quartet, written when the home-sick composer was in America visiting fellow Czech-speakers in the small town of Spillville, Iowa.  The Piatti Quartet are deeply inside this work: from the striking opening with its gentle murmurings for upper strings and aspiring melody for viola, through the intensity of the slow movement, full of bittersweet, spiritual-inspired melody.  The scherzo had both energy and a sort of sparkling whimsy, especially as Dvorak includes the call of the bird that was keeping him awake at night (a red-eyed vireo…apparently).  The finale’s train-like rhythms (the composer was a famous locomotive buff) chugged along, creating much toe-tapping good humour along the way.

 In short, this was a cleverly designed programme, executed with precision and emotional depth.  And it was further enhanced by humorous, succinct introductions by the players.

Piatti Quartet:

Michael Trainor, violin

Emily Holland, violin

Miguel Sobrinho, viola

Jessie Ann Richardson, cello