Performances of conviction bring an American figure to life
The Strad Issue: October 2025
Description: Performances of conviction bring an American figure to life
Musicians: Formosa Quartet
Works: McKay: String Quartets: no.1 ‘American Sketches’, no.2 ‘Appassionato’, no.3 ‘Poem of Life and Death’, no.4 ‘Misteri del Balboa’
Catalogue number: ORCHID CLASSICS ORC100381
George Frederick McKay might not be a name on many musicians’ lips, but he was a significant player in 20th-century American music, as professor at the University of Washington for 41 years, teacher of many (including John Cage), and prolific composer of energetic, muscular music (not for nothing was he an accomplished athlete himself).
It’s hard to imagine more persuasive advocates for his chamber works than the Formosa Quartet, whose crisp, vivid accounts of McKay’s first four quartets on this crammed-full disc make a strong case for his idiomatic music. There are shades of Barber and Ravel in his First Quartet (1935), which already shows the immaculate phrasing, balance and joyful enthusiasm that the Formosa players go on to bring to the whole release.
The Formosa expertly charts the ever-developing ideas in McKay’s more dissonant Second Quartet (1937), while bringing a touching wistfulness to the greater opulence of his nostalgic Third Quartet of 1950.
There’s more Bartók than Ravel in the bracing, sometimes austere Fourth Quartet, and the Formosa responds with propulsive, vibrant performances, attacking the work’s jagged themes with gusto. Listening to all four quartets in one sitting might prove too much of a good thing – McKay probably offers an interesting byway in American music rather than profound new revelations. Nonetheless, it’s a very rewarding disc, captured in close, warm sound.
David Kettle
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