Folk heroes

With the release of the Maxwell Quartet’s third volume of Haydn quartets, alongside their own arrangements of Scottish folk music, cellist Duncan Strachan describes how understanding the connections between the two genres helps the players communicate more directly with audiences

This is the Maxwell Quartet’s third disc of Haydn. What draws you to the composer?

The background to us choosing to record Haydn is that his music is where we began as a quartet. It’s how many quartets begin – the origin of the genre! We’ve always felt a particular affinity with his quartets. One of the lightbulb moments in our career was recognising that there is an irrepressible folk spirit in a lot of Haydn’s music, particularly his quartets. That allowed us to connect his music with our own backgrounds, as three of us grew up playing traditional Scottish music. We’ve developed that idea and taken it with us throughout our career.  

This CD is dedicated to one of our teachers and mentors, Hatto Beyerle, who died last year. We felt this was a fitting tribute, because one of the things he helped us understand was the idea that folk music is essential to understanding Haydn, Beethoven and many others. An understanding of one helps the other.

What does folk music teach you about classical music?

When we think about folk music, one of the things that comes to mind is its directness. Whether it’s folk dances, with their strong rhythmic qualities, or slower songs and airs, folk music has an incredibly direct emotional power. Classical repertoire can sometimes feel quite daunting: there’s a perceived sense that it requires a degree of intellectual rigour. That is important and can be wonderfully rewarding, but the danger is that you sometimes risk losing the connection with its direct qualities – the emotional, physical aspects – which seem to come more naturally in folk music. Applying that same folk music attitude helps us with our interpretations of classical quartets.

How do audiences respond when you when you play classical and folk music in the same programme?

It’s been amazing to see how audiences react to the combination. We often include a folk set after a classical quartet in our concerts, and the feeling in the room changes. You suddenly feel much closer to your audience, as though they’ve been able to connect with you in a new way. It’s as if they’re not being played ‘to’, but ‘with’. We notice a tangible feeling of audience and performers being more at one with each other, more at ease. That’s one of the reasons that we do it.

What do you think of the way that genres such as classical music are generally kept quite separate?

I think it’s changing, which is great to see. There are more and more groups who play with different genres and styles, and that works so well when it reveals something about their identity and background. 

The string quartet is an amazing medium, with a rich history and huge amounts of wonderful repertoire, but that can also sometimes feel like a curse, because it can feel like you’re trying to do the impossible to articulate it. How can you ever make ‘the best’ version of a particular string quartet? We have an innate respect for the tradition, and, of course, the composers who wrote these quartets, but we also recognise that when we play them, we’re doing so through our own lens. That’s inevitably going to be different to the next quartet, and how they interpret them. Being able to bring that out by having your own perspective, whether that’s through folk music or something else, somehow helps the story you are trying to tell. It also helps you as an artist to feel that you’re doing something valid and uniquely your own, which gives you more confidence.

You’ve started a new project, Bridging, to take string quartets into local schools. What are your aims?

Bridging began in November last year, having been in the planning pipeline for a long time. Its beginnings go back to the pandemic, a time of reflection on how the world is changing, and how our passions and priorities alter over time. We love the string quartet lifestyle of touring the world, meeting new people, seeing places and getting to perform in different venues. But we also feel a strong connection to home, and place, and we wanted to keep up some sort of connection or roots in Scotland. There’s also a feeling of wanting to give something back to a place and a community where we feel our music and work are relevant. 

Through the initiative, we are embedded in the region of East Lothian in Scotland (home for two of the quartet members) and connecting with the community in different ways. People who might not typically go to string quartet concerts can access both the music and us – without too many of the potential barriers of formal concert experiences. 

We’re going into schools and community settings, working with different community groups, from the elderly to young families, people with mental or physical health issues, and other vulnerable groups. We give performances in settings that are comfortable and familiar to them. It’s going to run for three years initially. So far, it’s been really interesting to meet lots of different members of the community and work with lots of school kids. 

What sort of reactions have you had to playing quartets in the community? 

We’ve had some very positive responses so far. Some of the best reactions have been along the lines of, ‘I didn’t think I’d enjoy this – but actually, it was really nice to be up close and kind of meet the musicians.’ It has confirmed our belief that when people get access to chamber music up close, it’s hard for them not to be engaged by it. It’s in the makeup of the genre somehow. You can enjoy a recording of a Haydn string quartet, but there’s an important human element you can make when you’re there in the room with the musicians. 

What has your experience in a quartet taught you? 

We’ve learnt about finding our own voices and ways to express our identity within an existing canon of repertoire. We’ve also realised that you have to adapt to the changing world and keep learning. It’s not always easy – we’re not people who always like to advertise everything we do and put ourselves out there, but in the current world social media is king, and you have to learn to see it as part of your performing role. 

There are lots of challenges as four different people with four different personalities, interests and ambitions. A quartet is a sort of marriage of four people. We’ve learnt about how to sync things up. One of the most important lessons might be that you don’t have to agree on everything, and it’s not the end of the world if you don’t. The best way is to find the things that make you all tick, and push them forward.

What are you working on next?

The Haydn series comes to a temporary close now. We’ll come back to his other 60 quartets, for sure, but for now, we’re keen to explore some of the many other composers who’ve written wonderful string quartets with folk music at its heart. There’s a lifetime of exploring to be done there!