Composer: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Performer: Maggini Quartet
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8557400
Release: 2008
Size: 248 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Naxos Quartet No. 9
01. I. Allegro
02. II. Largo flessibile
03. III. Presto
04. IV. Lento
05. V. Alla marcia
06. VI. Allegro
Naxos Quartet No. 10
07. I. Broken Reel: Allegro
08. II. Slow Air and Rant: Adagio non troppo
09. III. Passamezzo Farewell: Adagio flessibile
10. IV. Deil Stick da Minister: Allegro
11. V. Hornpipe Unfinished: Allegro moderato
Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time, and is currently Master of the Queen’s Music. His musical idiom has been described by The New York Times as a combination of ‘medieval mysticism, modernist rigour and happy accessibility’.
This fifth and final instalment of Maxwell Davies’s 10-quartet cycle commissioned by Naxos opens with Quartet No. 9, dedicated to Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, mathematician extraordinary, and sometime Lord Mayor of Manchester, both of which attributes have influenced the content of the work.
The composer has written of Quartet No. 10, ‘in no way must this be a last quartet. I needed to leave the door open: I had enjoyed writing the Naxos Quartets so much, and perhaps even learned a thing or two, that more could, in theory, eventually flourish’.