Composer: Graham Fitkin
Performer: Simon Haram, Ruth Wall, Graham Fitkin, Joby Burgess, Clare Hammond, Sacconi Quartet
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Signum
Catalogue: SIGCD792
Release: 2024
Size: 2.39 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
01. LOOSENING
02. SLOW
03. DISTIL
04. TOUCH
05. RECUR
‘LOOSENING’ is a double album of five works by award winning composer Graham Fitkin. Each one has the string quartet at its core but every work includes its own additional soloist.
The string quartet is a really homogenous group, steeped in history and tradition, in which timbrally similar instruments create a well-honed sound through trusted communication and shared purpose.
Each work has clearly defined roles for the two protagonists – quartet and solist. Each piece allows for two perspectives, two distinct approaches to the material and yet each protagonist is affected by the other.
Approaches often evolve through the works, perhaps the quartet splits their honed homogeneity to focus more on individual constituents or conversely maybe they subsume the incomer into their group creating a larger group.
An album of world premiere recordings – four of thefive works have never been recorded before, and the fifth is a new arrangement (also never recorded).
‘DISTIL’ won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Prize For Chamber Works in 2015.
The works here by composer Graham Fitkin are substantial; there are two CDs worth of them in the physical version, all longer than 15 minutes, and they are quite compelling. The album made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2024, which is an accomplishment for contemporary works of this heft. Fitkin’s aims are concisely stated. Each work has the string quartet at its core, he says, and there is one (or in one case, two organs) solo instrument. The string quartet is “steeped in history, ” so the addition of other instruments “creates questions and opportunities.” What holds the interest is that the relationship between the string quartet and the new instrument is different in each case. “TOUCH” (the use of the all-caps device is not clear in its intent), with a piano, approaches traditional piano quintet texture. “RECUR,” featuring the harp of Ruth Wall, also has pizzicato writing in the strings, and the piece is about subtle differences in texture. The 28-minute title work contains striking negotiations between the quartet and the solo soprano saxophone; hear the sax’s entrance, where the quartet instruments stop and listen, as it were. All five works are fully thought out and justify their length. Highly recommended to anyone who has ever wondered how much more mileage there might be in the string quartet genre.