Composers by tradition channel their most serious, abstract thinking into symphonies and string quartets. And though Benjamin Britten was neither a symphonist nor someone who worked in the abstract – writing mostly vocal music with a narrative – he did produce three significant quartets, as well as youthful stabs at the medium that were consigned to bottom-drawers.
Collectively they formed the basis for this year’s Britten Weekend at Snape Maltings, Suffolk, with the Doric Quartet playing most of the programmes. And if that sounds an arcane experience, it was in truth exhilarating – with an almost spiritual intensity, and the more so for the fact that it was happening in such a special place as Snape, surrounded by flat marshland and huge Suffolk skies that turn by night into a moonlit drama so romantic it’s like something out of Turner.
