Maxwell Quartet appointed in Mull

The players of the Maxwell Quartet have been appointed as Artistic Directors of Mendelssohn on Mull Festival in Scotland, taking over from the Doric String Quartet, which has served in the role since 2018. 

The festival was started in 1988 by violinist Leonard Friedman to provide training for students and young professionals. The Maxwells made their first visit to the festival this summer, giving eight concerts in venues across the island, both as a quartet and side-by-side with eight young players. 

Alex Ross of the New Yorker magazine visited this year's festival and wrote: ‘The Maxwells’ folk background also influences how they approach a score like Dvořák’s Quartet No. 13 in G, which they played at a concert in Salen Church. As Strachan explained before the performance—the members take turns talking to the audience, all showing a flair for communicative chat—Dvořák wrote the work after his sojourn in the United States, seeming to wallow happily in a return to a Czech milieu. At the same time, the quartet is a sophisticated, idiosyncratic construction, with tricky rhythmical layering and semi-impressionistic harmony. The Maxwells’ account was sensationally persuasive. The slashing up-and-down motto of the first movement had the rough finish of a Bartók ostinato. Scobie brought off the contrasting triplet-powered theme with a spontaneous lilt; later, Perks gave it a more ruminative feel. Sustained harmonies were sometimes delivered without vibrato, so that they had a raw, ripe power—as in the bagpipe-like drone of “McIntosh’s Lament,” which came next.’

Next year's festival runs from 31 August to 4 September 2025.

Read the full New Yorker article here.