Bridge: String Quartets

On this CD:

1. String Quartet No. 4
Composed by Frank Bridge

2. String Quartet No. 1 in E minor ("Bologna")
Composed by Frank Bridge

Tracks:

Adagio - Allegro Appassionato
Adagio Molto
Allegretto Grazioso - Animato
Allegro Agitato - Allegro Moderato - Adagio Molto
Andante Moderato - Allegro Moderato
Andante Con Moto
Allegro Energico

Album Description

Perhaps no other British composer of the first half of the twentieth century reveals a stylistic musical journey as great as Frank Bridge. His early works follow in the late-Romantic tradition bearing a kinship with Fauré; later Bridge comes close to Delius. After the First World War, however, his music became intense and chromatic. In his String Quartet No. 3 (1926), Bridge rubs shoulders with the early works of the Second Viennese School. Commissioned by the American patroness Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, it fully revealed for the first time Bridge's advanced mature voice. The work's language shows kinship with Berg and Bartók; the twelve semitones are constantly in play; octave doublings are avoided, and the music is driven by a relentless momentum. Bridge's First String Quartet was written in haste in the space of a month in response to a competition organized by the Accademia Filarmonica, Bologna. Of the 67 quartets submitted only Bridge's received a `mention d'honneur'.

Bridge: String Quartets 2 & 4 / Phantasy Piano Quartet

Average customer rating:

Fine Phantasy ; String Quartets No Masterpieces
Great introduction to a neglected master at a GREAT price
Fine Frank Bridge Chamber Works Given Excellent Performances

Bridge: String Quartets 2 & 4 / Phantasy Piano Quartet
Martin Roscoe , and Maggini Quartet
Manufacturer: Naxos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:

Bridge: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 3
Frank Bridge: Works for String Quartet
String Quartet 3 / Lyrical Interlude / Adagio
Bax: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2
Walton: Piano Quartet / String Quartet

ASIN: B0007ORDV8
Release Date: 2005-03-22

Tracks:

Allegro Ben Moderato
Allegro Vivo - Andante Con Moto - Tempo 1
Molto Adagio - Allegro Vivace
Andante Con Moto - Allegro Vivace - L'Istesso Tempo - Tempo Dell'Introduzione - Andante Con Moto - Pochettino Allargando - Tranquillo
Allegro Energico (Tempo 1) - Largamente (Tempo 2)
Quasi Minuetto
Adagio Ma Non Troppo - Allegro Con Brio

Customer Reviews:

Fine Phantasy ; String Quartets No Masterpieces.......2007-02-16

The gem on this CD is the Phantasy Quartet which shows the influence of both Brahms and Faure. Bridge's second string quartet is hardly the masterpiece described in the liner notes. His fourth string quartet seems to be a collection of stylistic gestures rather than a coherent whole. Aside from the Phantasy Quartet, these are workmanlike but uninspired compositions. Bridge is not the only composer to have significantly shifted his style and language. During roughly the same period, Zemlinsky went through a similar transition and produced four very fine string quartets.

Great introduction to a neglected master at a GREAT price.......2005-05-10

There are many virtues of this CD, but perhaps the greatest is the breadth of exposure to Bridge's music at such a terrific price. The Phantasy is very reminiscent of the Brahms piano trios, but no one could mistake the Fourth Quartet for anyone other than Bridge. Together with the companion Naxos CDs of the Quartets #1 and 3 and the "Music for String Quartet", all performed by the very accomplished Maggini Quartet, you get the complete quartets plus so much memorable music for the price of a single high-end import. The music is alternately haunting, "music-hall"-ish, and nearly atonal. Really, my highest recommendation for anyone interested in 20th Century English music or just looking for something off of more well-visited paths.

Fine Frank Bridge Chamber Works Given Excellent Performances.......2005-04-11

Finally emerging from the shadow cast by Benjamin Britten, his most famous student, Frank Bridge (1879-1941) is now seen to be a major British composer of the first half of the twentieth century. Twenty-five years ago most music lovers had only heard of Bridge because Britten wrote a set of variations on one of his themes. Now, increasingly, his music is figuring on orchestral and chamber programs. His tone poems 'The Sea' and 'Enter Spring' are now heard with some regularity. Equally, his chamber music, a significant portion of his output, is now heard from time to time. Still, in fifty years of concert-going, I've never heard any of the present works played in concert, which is a pity as each of these three pieces is not only strongly written, but immediately attractive.

The earliest is the 'Phantasy for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello in F Sharp Minor' written in 1909-1910. One of the large number of compositions in the 16th-century 'phantasy' (or 'fancy') form by numbers of English composers at the behest of W. W. Cobbett who had founded an annual prize in 1907 for pieces in the form, the Phantasy Piano Quartet is in Bridge's early style, partaking of a Brahmsian melos colored by the English/Irish quality of Bridge's teacher, C. V. Stanford. In one movement, it is in an arch form that mimics the movements of a standard piano quartet but played without interruption. In its twelve minutes it contains a slow, dramatic introduction followed by a light-hearted scherzo and then a gradual slowing to a tranquil finish. Three members of the Maggini Quartet, partnered by the fine English pianist Martin Roscoe, give an impassioned performance.

The first major chamber work of Bridge's maturity, by the time the Second String Quartet came to be written Cobbett's competition allowed works either in sonata or phantasy form. The Quartet is in three-movement sonata form , with a sonata-allegro first movement, a fast middle movement, and an allegro vivace third movement that follows a slow introduction. Interestingly, though, the middle movement is itself in Cobbett's beloved phantasy form. The Quartet won the Cobbett Prize for 1915. More chromatic than the Phantasy Quartet, the Second Quartet marks an advance in Bridge's musical language and points the way to the really quite amazing advances he was to make following the end of the War and up to his death in 1941. In this Quartet Bridge's strong melodic ability is in evidence as is a still-evident easygoing romanticism. He was himself a violist, having played in both the Joachim and the English Quartets, and one can note that the viola has some extremely interesting things to say throughout.

The Fourth Quartet (1937) was Bridge's last string quartet and very nearly his last chamber piece. It partakes of a more highly chromatic, almost atonal, harmonic language than his acknowledged chamber masterpiece, the Second Piano Trio, written ten years before. Anthony Payne in his fine article on Bridge in the Grove Dictionary comments that Bridge showed 'determination to keep all 12 chromatic notes in play' in this quartet and yet managed to keep his 'essential Englishness.' Echoes of Alban Berg are heard in the luscious post-romantic hyper-chromaticism, and yet for anyone who knows Bridge's earlier works, it is still recognizably a work by him. In three movements, the quartet is classical in its outline, certainly more so than the Second Quartet, with a large and complex sonata-allegro first movement with dramatic first and lyrical second themes, followed by a minuet (albeit an eerie one) and a rondo finale. In the dark and uneasy minuet Bridge gives important things to the viola, one of his stylistic fingerprints. The rondo finale becomes increasingly upbeat and the quartet ends with a flourish. There is no question that this quartet is one of the high water marks of early twentieth-century English quartet writing.

The Maggini Quartet (named for a sixteenth-century Italian instrument maker) was formed in 1988 and has become one of the more reliably interesting quartets in Great Britain. They are in the midst of recording the series of ten 'Naxos Quartets' written for them by Peter Maxwell-Davies and commissioned by the Naxos label. The first two have been released and the next two are due for release shortly. They have also recorded the 'Phantasy Quartet' of Ralph Vaughan Williams (along with the rest of his quartet output) and have also recorded all the Britten quartets. The members are Laurence Jackson and David Angel, violins; Martin Outram, viola; and Michal Kaznowski, cello.

TT=59:33

Scott Morrison

Beethoven The Middle Quartets in Concert at the Library of Congress 1940-1960

Average customer rating:

Sets the standard
High Octane Beethoven or Jeggy?
The Library Recordings vs The Studio Recordings
Thoroughly enjoyed this collection.

Beethoven The Middle Quartets in Concert at the Library of Congress 1940-1960
Ludwig van Beethoven , and Budapest String Quartet
Manufacturer: Bridge
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Great Performances From The Library Of Congress, Vol. 6: Budapest String Quartet In Concert At The Library of Congress
Beethoven: String Quartets, Op. 18
Mozart Recordings (1940-1945)
Great Performances From The Library Of Congress, Vol. 5: Budapest String Quartet
Mozart: The 6 Haydn-Quartets; The 6 String Quintets

ASIN: B00004UAHV
Release Date: 2000-08-22

Tracks:

Qt No. 7 in F, Op. 59 No. 1: 1. Intro. Andante Con Moto; Allegro Vivace
Qt No. 7 in F, Op. 59 No. 1: 2. Allegretto Vivace E Sempre Scherzando
Qt No. 7 in F, Op. 59 No. 1: 3. Adagio Molto E Mesto
Qt No. 7 in F, Op. 59 No. 1: 4. Theme Russe: Allegro
Alexander Schneider Speaks About The Budapest Str Qts Early Years

Tracks:

Qt No. 9 in C, Op. 59 No. 3: 1. Intro: Andante Con Moto; Allegro Vivace
Qt No. 9 in C, Op. 59 No. 3: 2. Andante Con Moto Quasi Allegretto
Qt No. 9 in C, Op. 59 No. 3: 3. Menuetto: Grazioso
Qt No. 9 in C, Op. 59 No. 3: 4. Allegro Molto
Qt No. 8 in e, Op. 59 No. 2: 5. Allegro
Qt No. 8 in e, Op. 59 No. 2: 1. Molto Adagio
Qt No. 8 in e, Op. 59 No. 2: 2. Allegretto
Qt No. 8 in e, Op. 59 No. 2: 3. Finale: Presto

Tracks:

Qt No. 10 in E flat, Op. 74: 1. Poco Adagio; Allegro
Qt No. 10 in E flat, Op. 74: 2. Adagio Ma Non Troppo
Qt No. 10 in E flat, Op. 74: 3. Presto
Qt No. 10 in E flat, Op. 74: 4. Allegretto Con Var
Qt No. 11 in f, Op. 95: 1. Allegro Con Brio
Qt No. 11 in f, Op. 95: 2. Allegretto Ma Non Troppo
Qt No. 11 in f, Op. 95: 3. Allegro Assai Vivace Ma Serioso
Qt No. 11 in f, Op. 95: 4. Larghetto Espressivo; Allegretto Agitato

Amazon.com

The Budapest Quartet was formed in 1917 by three Hungarians and a Dutchman. When the group arrived in America in 1934, all four players were Russians. The Budapest became this country's first string quartet able to live entirely on performing; it owed its meteoric rise to fame in part to the nationwide broadcasts of its concerts. The players were also the first to hold residencies, one at the University of Buffalo, where they established an annual Beethoven cycle, and one lasting 22 years at the Library of Congress, where these three discs were recorded in live performance. Their style, which long set the standard for quartet playing and influenced generations of chamber musicians, was distinguished by its immaculate perfection of technique, tone, and ensemble, and by its aristocratic elegance and moderation. All these qualities are fully in evidence here: the scrupulous observance of Beethoven's markings; the beauty and purity of the individual and collective sound; the balance, clarity, and uncannily smooth taking over of voices; the supple steadiness of the rhythm. Their contrasts are subtle, they take almost no liberties, and they avoid outward effects, such as slides, and all extremes of tempo and dynamics. Their playing is noble, austere, and restrained, with a certain cool, impersonal detachment, but they can also get involved and carried away. The slow movements have great warmth, depth, and intensity of expression. The Scherzo of Op. 74 is tempestuous and sweeping, Op. 95 is headlong and menacing, the fast Codas take off like the wild wind. --Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews:

Sets the standard.......2004-08-26

These middle quartets of Beethoven, recorded here by the great Budapest Quartet between 1940 and 1960, in my opinion set the standard of playing for the middle quartets (as do their other recordings for the early and late quartets). The playing here is clean and incredibly precise, thus leaving the listener with a very satisfied feeling. Despite the fact that the sound quality is not quite up to the level of recordings being made today, one can still quite certainly tell that artistically and musically speaking, the recording is maybe the finest ever, due to the Budapest Quartet's musical intelligence and overall immaculate playing. I am happy to recommend this recording as the definitive set of the middle quartets, played by true champions of Beethoven.

High Octane Beethoven or Jeggy?.......2004-03-01

It's hard to decide whether these performances are powerful or just fast and glib, as some detractors say they are. The Buddas take these works at a faster clip than we are used to, and as a result sometimes some of the nuance is missing. It could also be argued they are sometimes guilty of using sheer "firepower" rather than interpretational depths in climactic moments. That's what the Jeggy crowd maintain. They compare these fleet performances to the high speed Beethoven of John Eliot Gardiner, who for me is just too superficial with his "rethinks" of Beethoven symphonies. But to me there's more meat on the bone, more than just briskness. The Budapests dig into the music with intense--almost too intense--feeling sometimes, even more in these live recordings than in their studio efforts. "High voltage" is such a cliche, but it's appropriate. These interpretations are interesting to me because while I find I don't always agree with them afterwards when I'm reflecting on the performances, while they're playing I'm too swept away to detach and critique. I'll agree that with the Buddas you often don't get certain nuances and intricacies, but to my ears they substitute their own brand of style and insightl whether you agree with it is another matter. With Jeggy, on the other hand, all I hear is speed and clarity--not bad in itself, but there's more to Beethoven's symphonies than speed and clarity, and I find his approach rather reductionist (which is different from small-scale and "less bloated," which his defenders would argue he is).

So this has turned out to be almost as much of a review of Gardiner as of the Budapests, but the short of it is these are fast, charged, "thin" performances, with edge, fire, and verve. Some niceties of phrasing get lost in their high-speed approach, and you'll definitely need additional recordings (Amadeus, Vegh, Julliard, Busch, Yale) to get a fuller appreciation of these, arguably among the very greatest masterworks in the string quartet literature. But these do have style and conviction--not the last word, not the first word, but definitely a set worth having. The live sound, as others have noted, can be tough on the ears. These are historic recordings, with all the maddening limitations that that moniker often implies. So it's probably best to get familiar with these works through other recordings before listening to these, but they should be part of your Beethoven collection.

The Library Recordings vs The Studio Recordings.......2003-12-28

As much as I love the Budapesters I couldn't get past the quality of the library recordings. You cannot hear the instruments articulate very well in some parts. I don't know if this is because the library has poor acoustics or the microphones where placed incorrectly. You loose some notes and even whole phrases at times in a blurr. The studio recordings are far superior in sound quality. If you already have these quartets in a modern recording and just want to add the superiority of the Budapesters then I would recommend this set so long as you know that there are sound limitations. If this is your first buy of these quartets I recommend buying the scattered and incomplete Sony Essential Classics recordings of the Budapesters playing these pieces. I know the CD generation will not like the library recordings, but if you are used to listening to music with a grain of salt for the quality of the recording then you can enjoy the library recordings.

Thoroughly enjoyed this collection........2000-12-31

Honestly, I had never heard of The Budapest before, I love classical music more and more these days and was searching for some options here on Amazon. This was one of the selections highlighted on my recommendations page and I listened to it and decided I would like it for Christmas. I recieved it and I have fallen in love with the Quartet...they play Beethoven so beautifully. I can't hear it enough, I find their playing to be very uplifting and relaxing at the same time. I also like how the interviews with the members of the Budapest....it gives great historical insight on the quartet and this time itself in history. I would recommend this CD to anyone who likes classical music in more simplistic settings. You feel as if you are sitting in on one of the concerts at the Library itself. Very authentic sound and ambience. Will always be a favorite of mine.

Average customer rating:

Brahms, Bridge, Turina: Piano Quartets
Amabile Piano Quartet , Johannes Brahms , Frank Bridge , and Joaquin Turina
Manufacturer: Summit(Classical)
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000038L1
Release Date: 2001-10-30

Tracks:

Allegro
Intermezzo - Allegro Ma Non Troppo
Andante Con Moto
Rondo Alla Zingarese - Presto
Phantasy Quartet In F# Minor
Lento
Vivo
Andante

Sibelius, Stravinsky, Ravel: String Quartets

Average customer rating:

Great young players

Sibelius, Stravinsky, Ravel: String Quartets

Manufacturer: Bridge
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000GW8RR0
Release Date: 2006-08-22

Customer Reviews:

Great young players.......2007-03-16

In a recording we expect perfect playing ....one will not be disappointed here. The playing and pitch are perfect, and the nuances are incredible and the SOUND... Well, it is breathtaking ... In short, these musicians deliver an extraordinary performance that matches or exceeds anything on recording. They may not be famous yet but they soon will be.....

Average customer rating:

THE LAND WITHOUT COMPOSERS
A Stunner!

British Piano Quartets

Manufacturer: Albany Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B000NJVYUI
Release Date: 2007-03-01

Tracks:

Quartet for Piano and Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 11
Phantay Quartet for Piano and Strings in f-sharp minor
Quartet for Piano and Strings in a-minor, Op. 21
Quartet for Piano and Strings in F-Major, Op. 15
Quartet for Piano and Strings
Quartet for PIano and Strings

Product Description

During one of his recital tours to Edinburgh during the 1860s and 1870s, Anton Rubinstein bluntly told Alexander Mackenzie Sie haben keine Komponisten (You [Britain] have no composers). From his account in his engaging memoir A Musician s Narrative (1927), Mackenzie apparently let the comment pass unanswered. After all, the Russian virtuoso was simply voicing a view widely heard in continental Europe and even in Britain as well. Many years later, as he surveyed a career that had spanned six decades, Mackenzie noted with many gleams of satisfaction the number of important musicians and composers of high merit who had come along. In company with his slightly younger contemporaries, Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford and Edward Elgar, Mackenzie was himself part of the generation of musicians born in the mid-19th century who first demonstrated that Britain did have composers and fine ones. Their successors among them Vaughan Williams, Frank Bridge, Herbert Howells and William Walton completed the transformation of European opinion. Along with presenting a compilation of signal British contributions to the piano quartet repertoire, this set offers a sample of the music of some of the very composers who helped deliver British music from its lowly state as a source of jests to a place of international recognition and esteem.

Customer Reviews:

THE LAND WITHOUT COMPOSERS.......2007-05-03

Time to thank America. If Britain in the 19th and early 20th century gained itself a European reputation as being some `land without composers' that was largely because musical Britain had corralled itself in an enclosure of its own constructing. There were plenty of interesting British composers throughout that period, differing widely in their musical idiom at that, but there was little sense that the British musical culture looked outwards. Boult had long championed his compatriots of course, and more recently the British Piano Concertos series has given an airing to some worthwhile and unfamiliar works thanks to Peter Donohoe. However these artists are themselves English, and Europe never showed much interest, but if Boult has a successor it is none other than Previn; and now here is the Ames Quartet coming to the rescue of some fine British chamber music.

This British insularity showed itself in two ways principally. In the later 19th century the most established British composers were ultra-conservatives -- not conservative in the way Elgar was, but would-be adherents of Brahms who never caught up with Brahms in the first place, such composers as Somervell, Mackenzie and Stanford. The other factor isolating Britain was a suicidal fixation with British folk music and an obsession with rural England, a kind of hedgerows-and-Housman club. No wonder the rest of Europe switched off, but fortunately times change. There is a clear reaction these days against some of the more avant-garde cacophony and experimentation, together with a reawakening of interest in not only music that is comparatively traditionalist and backward-looking such as that of York Bowen, but even in the ultras too. If Mackenzie's quartet here had been played to me without attribution I would have been fairly certain that it was not Bruch being too conservative to be by him, but I would still have thought it was rather good; and now there are fewer censors to tell me not to think that. The only other thing by Mackenzie in my collection is his Scottish Piano Concerto, and nothing could be more striking than how much better Mackenzie composes when, as in this quartet, he relies on his own primary inspiration and shakes off the dead weight of ersatz nationalism.

Time now to thank these American players specifically. The Ames Quartet are a first-class ensemble just as executants before we come to their interpretations. The pianist in particular has a firmness of touch that I prefer to the tentativeness of Susan Tomes of the much admired (and justly admired) Domus ensemble. There are six separate works here, varying in idiom from the downright reactionary (Mackenzie and Stanford) to the mildly modernistic (Jacob and Walton). I welcome the selection in the first place for its thoughtfulness and intellectual curiosity, and above all for the Walton item. Walton is a long-standing favourite of mine, and I have a very respectable collection of his work, but this quartet is a new one on me. It rounds off the recital in superb style with a spiky finale that gets some magnificent playing from the instrumentalists. They show understanding and insight into the various styles they have to put across to us, and where lyric warmth is called for, particularly in Mackenzie's piece, their tone is a joy to listen to. Power when called for is effortless and unforced, tempi seem just and affectations and mannerisms are thankfully absent.

The recorded sound is up to the high standard that we have been led to expect these days and therefore rightly demand. It would be unreasonable and impolite to demand more productions like this, but if there are going to be any more on offer we should all think ourselves privileged.

A Stunner!.......2007-04-23

It is to the credit of the Ames Piano Quartet, a group long-resident at Iowa State University (located in Ames, Iowa, whence the group's name), that they have recorded six -- count 'em, six -- piano quartets by British composers and not a loser among them. This 2CD set contains music by Mackenzie, Bridge, Howells, Stanford, Jacob and Walton. The informative program notes by Karl Gwiasda indicate that it all got started when a British musicologist, John Purser, during a residency at ISU brought their attention to the piano quartet of Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935), a work never before recorded. This piece, let me say, is a major discovery. I would, in fact, place it in the exalted company of similar music by Schumann and Mendelssohn. In the usual four movements, it begins with a genial sonata-allegro followed by a downright infectious scherzo with a folk-music feel; one pictures Scots folk dancing on the lawn. A set of variations, again on a folk-like tune, follows; expert indeed, it is infused with both melodic and formal interest. The finale is another sonata-allegro with catchy dotted rhythms, all worked out with impeccable skill and grace. There is even an echo of Schumannesque fugato to be heard. The quartet was written in 1875, so it was probably a bit old-fashioned at the time, but at the distance now of more than 125 years that matters little. This is a piece that demands to be heard. One can only hope that it will be taken up by other groups.

The 11-minute Phantasy Quartet (1911) by Frank Bridge (1879-1941) was the third of the pieces Bridge wrote for W.W. Cobbett's annual competition for works in the 'Fantasy' form -- one movement, short duration, variations in tempo and meter. Bridge's work, heavily influenced by the new Impressionist ethos, is rhapsodic with full-throated lyrical melodies and both musing and exultant passages.

The Piano Quartet (1917, rev. 1936) of Herbert Howells (1892-1983) is in three movements. Howells, perhaps best known for his gorgeous sacred choral works, also left a large body of instrumental works, among them this quartet which has, unfortunately, never figured heavily in concert programs. Its first movement is a serene folk-tinged ballad. Its second movement, a gentle Lento molto tranquillo, is one of the highlights of this disc. The Ames Quartet play it with ineffable tenderness. I found myself going back to it again and again. The finale is a rumbustious allegro notable for its modal harmonies, evoking a rural Hardyan England.

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was an Irish composer and pedagogue (teacher of, among many others, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Bridge, Howells and Jacob). His music is conservative and exceedingly beautifully crafted. He also was a richly talented melodist. The First Piano Quartet (1879) carries strong influences of Schumann and Brahms. It is notable for its high spirits. The sonata-allegro first movement has particularly appealing themes. Amazingly, he tops that with a second-movement Scherzo which bubbles and dances. The Adagio is a plaintive hymn with a gently spirited trio. The finale is a joyous rondo that sounds for all the world like it could have been written by Schumann.

The Piano Quartet (1969) by Gordon Jacob (1895-1984) is altogether more dramatic and angular than anything that precedes it in this set. Jacob, known primarily for his band music, as an arranger of others' music and as a writer on musical subjects, was a serious composer with an extensive portfolio of abstract works. Although conservative for his generation, nonetheless the music is strong meat with heavy dependence of secundal, quartal and modal harmonies. Its dramatic qualities are aptly underlined by the performance here.

The final work presented here, the Piano Quartet (1922, rev. 1976) of William Walton (1902-1983), was a student work Walton strengthened fifty years later. After a strongly modal first movement the Scherzo, placed second, has echoes of both Debussy and Stravinsky. The real gem of the work is the pastoral third movement, Andante tranquillo, which for all its Impressionist harmonies sounds as quintessentially English as anything written by, say, Vaughan Williams. The finale, Allegro molto, is again Stravinskyan, particularly in its virtuoso piano writing, and features islands of lovely reposeful string writing before reaching an exuberant ending.

I cannot praise highly enough the playing of The Ames Piano Quartet -- Mahlon Dartington, violin; Jonathan Sturm, viola; George Work, cello; William David, piano -- whose work here is of the highest order. I had admired their earlier set of the Fauré piano quartets but with this set I realize I need to seek out their other recordings; this is a world-class ensemble.

Strongly recommended.

Scott Morrison