The Spencer Dyke Quartet was a
string quartet active in
England through the 1920s. It was formed in 1918 and its personnel remained unchanged until August 1927 when
Bernard Shore became the violist and Tate Gilder the second violin.[1] It is best remembered now for a series of pioneering chamber music recordings made for the
National Gramophonic Society.[2] At the time of the recordings, the Quartet members were Edwin Spencer Dyke (1st violin), Edwin Quaife (2nd violin), Ernest Tomlinson (viola) and Bertie Patterson Parker cello.
Bernard Shore played viola in the last two recordings only.[2]
Origins
Spencer Dyke was a
Cornishviolinist, having been born at
St Austell on 22 July 1880. He won the Dove Scholarship at the
Royal Academy of Music in
London at the age of 17, and became a professor there in 1907. He was mainly concerned with chamber music, teaching and editing. By 1924 he had written violin pieces and studies, had published editions of the classics and a book of scales.[3] In October 1923,
Compton Mackenzie founded the
National Gramophonic Society for the recording and publication by subscription of classical music, principally chamber music, which was of limited circulation.[4] The Spencer Dyke Quartet was by then already well-known: Spencer Dyke joined the advisory board for the selection of material for the Society, together with
Walter Willson Cobbett, and others. Cobbett had founded the Cobbett Competition in 1905 for a short form of String Quartet composition or 'Phantasy', and for other short chamber works. The Society was intended to develop the taste for modern chamber music. The Spencer Dyke Quartet, together with various other instrumentalists in ensemble, appeared on many of the recordings, and his position on the committee therefore probably signified the original intention of the founders to employ his musicians for the project.
Recordings
(Including related ensemble recordings)
Frank Bridge 3 Noveletten, nos 1 and 3 (Vocalion D02155: 2 sides)
Dvořák String Quartet in F major op 96 (Vocalion K05132,K05133,K03154: 6 sides)
Haydn String Quartet in D major op 64 no 5 (Vocalion X9554,X9555,X9556: 6 sides)
McEwen Suite of Old National Dances (String Quartet no 12) (Vocalion R6140: 2 sides)
Beethoven: String Quartet in E flat major op 74 'Harp' (NGS A,B,C: 6 sides)
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor op 10 (NGS D,E,F: 6 sides)
Schubert: Piano Trio in E flat major D 929 (Dyke and Parker with
Harold Craxton, piano) (NGS H,J,K,L,M+: 9 sides)