Disc Details

Contents

Work Title	Composer
Naxos Quartet No. 1	Peter Maxwell Davies	Listen
Naxos Quartet No. 2	Peter Maxwell Davies	Listen

Reviews

• The evidence on the first CD release points to an assured handling of the idiom, and augurs well for the complete cycle ... The quartets are by turns rugged, passionate, lyrical, mysterious and beautiful - and performed with conviction by the Maggini Quartet. Although neither of the quartets in this recording feels incomplete, it appears that each subsequent addition to the cycle will retrospectively alter our perception of the earlier members of the cycle. My impression, at this stage, is that the leanings towards the tonal centres of F and D will become increasingly important, but you can never tell with Max. One hopes that the complete cycle will enrich our understanding of these works. Until then, we have plenty to enjoy.
  Edward Venn, Tempo, 01 July 2005
• The first release in a novel arrangement whereby a label has commissioned a composer. Davies is undertaking 10 “Naxos” string quartets: No 1 is in three movements, the last a wispy Mendelssohnian evanescence, while No 2 has passages of Bartokian incisiveness.
  Paul Driver, Sunday Times 'Records of the Year', 12 December 2004
• They manage to combine intellectual rigor and impressionistic evocations of place (Orkney, Scotland) and time (Sir Peter's own life) in wistful, thoughtful landscapes of music that whet a listener's appetite for the rest of the story.
  Anne Midgette, New York Times 'Best Classical CDs of 2004', 12 December 2004
• I was nourished most by the Maggini Quartet's advocacy of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's first two Naxos Quartets: rewarding works, flawlessly played.
  Andrew Achenbach, Grammophone, 01 December 2004
• This disc marks an auspicious moment in the chamber music of the new millennium. This is unpredictable music, full of surprise, brimming with vividly etched ideas; it's constantly pulled, torn even, by the contesting impulses of its bold and animated argument. As so often before, the Magginis shine brightly. Virtuosic, intelligent, gorgeously toned, they are also excellently served by the warmth and transparency of the recording …these pieces are powerful and abundant enough to allow listeners to discover their own meanings in them. Those who succeed are likely to find themselves keenly anticipating the next installment.
  Christopher Ballantine, International Record Review, 01 December 2004
• …it promises to be one of the most significant achievements of his distinguished career. It is difficult to classify Maxwell Davies's lanuage in these first two works - the volatility and quick mood-swings of Janácek's quartets come closest to mind in its manner, if not its content - but it definitely relates to his long series of works inspired by his adopted Orkney homeland. There is a real emotional and gestural integrity to this music, played with inspired insight and confidence by the Maggini Quartet, and even if the melodic and rhythmic ideas take a while - and repeated hearing - to absorb, it is easy to become entrapped by the spell of Maxwell Davies's sense of atmosphere and expressive force. Immensely rewarding.
  Matthew Rye, The Daily Telegraph, 06 November 2004
• This really is something special … [they] make an excellent starting point for anyone making an initial foray into the contemporary music scene.
  Julian Haylock, Classic fM Magazine, 01 November 2004
• Peter Maxwell Davies is writing a series of ten string quartets for Naxos, a commission that proves that innovation is still alive in the record industry, which is all the more remarkable when it comes from a super-budget price label. Maxwell Davies has always ploughed a lone furrow, preferring to create an individual musical voice, but here he harks back to Bartok, carrying on where the Hungarian composer's string quartets ended.
  
  Passages of furious activity in the opening movement of the First Quartet sit next to periods of darkness shot through with blinding rays of light, and the feeling of unease continues in the slow and sombre central Largo. That sense of foreboding eventually gives way in the linked final Allegro molto, a gentle wind darting in and out of a refreshing texture. After the quiet opening of the Second Quartet, the first movement is propelled by a sense of powerful undercurrents. Dynamic and tempo contrasts are explored and eerie harmonics threaten the forward urge of the music. Shimmering, iridescent colours are used as a foil to the rhythmic energy in the following Lento flessibile and the third-movement Allegro acts as a brief scherzo before coldness imposes itself on a finale that ends in a scream.
  
  Both works must be exceedingly difficult to perform, requiring a wide range of colours and dynamics, and each member of the quartet is given taxing solo roles. As the disc was made in the presence of the composer, we must assume the Maggini's stunningly brilliant and highly detailed performances reflect his wishes. The sound quality is admirable both in impact and inner detail, and I fervently commend this disc to you as a most auspicious start to chamber music in our new century.
  David Denton, The Strad, 01 November 2004
• These first two quartets certainly have a real sense of urgency about their invention. Both are big-boned, confident pieces, the First lasting approximately 30 minutes, the Second almost 15 minutes more, and the Maggini Quartet sustains both with huge assurance; neither is easy to play technically, but every detail is there.
  Andrew Clements, BBC Music, 01 November 2004
• If this initial installment is anything to go by, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's ambitious series of 10 Naxos Quartets is already shaping up to be quite a journey. Not only does the septuagenarian composer rise superbly to the technical challenges of the medium, the first two movements of the First Quartet evince a formal strength, expressive scope and thematic ingenuity that launch the cycle in sure-footed fashion; both attain a dramatic and emotional resolution in some arresting unison writing. The compact concluding scherzo could hardly provide a bolder contrast; its ghostly, Will-'o-the-wisp dialogue will re-emerge in the Third Quartet. There are four movements [to the Second Quartet], the second and third of which comprise a self-contained diptych. The outer movements are more expansive. An expectant Lento instroduction leads to a bracing Allegro, its progress stimulating and satisfyingly proportioned. The finale is finer still: a memorably serene and utterly inevitable essay.
  
  The Magginis are most accurate and cogent guides, realistically recorded within the sympathetic acoustic of Potton Hall in Suffolk. A most rewarding coupling.
  Andrwe Achenbach, Grammophone, 01 November 2004
• The first two [are] performed with great skill and convinction by the Maggini Quartet … [what is] important is how well and idiomatically he writes for this medium. His stated indebtedness to Haydn is no verbal conceit. The first quartet has a dramatic and well contrasted first movement, covering a wide emotional spectrum and is followed by a passacaglia slow movement rich in beauty. The second quartet is longer and more rigorous, with a slow-movement finale of compelling beauty. Both works contain some of Max's most expressive and lyrical music, their inspiration matched by their craftmanship, as well as passages where his capacity for inventing 'new' sounds is fully evident.
  Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph, 31 October 2004
• Both quartets, characteristically, are tough yet expressive, tautly structured yet expansive in range. While self-contained, they feel like a journey in progress, evoking a flavour of late Beethoven. Uncompromisingly serious and formally bold, they explore the physicality of the medium and come to an unexpected resolution. The Maggini Quartet gives beautfiully coloured, confident and compelling performances.
  Stephen Pettitt, London Evening Standard, 22 October 2004
• Max has clearly found a new expressive economy: the music is articulated with Beethovenian inwardness as well as a rigorous balance of form and content. An unexpected triumph.
  Andrew Clark, The Financial Times, 16 October 2004
• No. 1 is in three movements, that last a wispy evanescence (positively Mendelssohnian), but the first a bedrock-like piece meant to support the entire series. No. 2 is notable for passages of Bartokian incisiveness, for the emergence of a poignant viola tune in the big lento finale, and for a shocking last bar. The Magginis have a brilliant command of the idiom.
  , The Sunday Times, 03 October 2004
• In a highly imaginative move, Naxos has commissioned 10 string quartets over the next five years from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Returning the compliment by calling the the 'Naxos' quartets, Maxwell Davies here delivers the first two in a recording by the excellent Maggini Quartet. Elegant, accessible, full of mood swings, these inventive works begin his long journey in a classical Orcadian landscape, via Beethoven, Haydn, Chopin and Scottish dance music, to a powerful interim resolution with echoes of Bartók and Berg.
  Anthony Holden, The Observer, 03 October 2004
• The Maggini Quartet delivers performances that audibly convey the impression of having had every detail carefully worked on in collaboration with the composer. Each line emerges clearly even in the most knotted passages. It seems inevitable that the musicians will find their way to the heart of Maxwell Davies’s idiom as they journey with him into the unknown. The recorded sound has a natural, soft-grained openness that perfectly suits the style of the Maggini and the music itself. I hope many curious listeners will be tempted by Naxos’s budget price to sample music that they might otherwise have considered as ‘difficult’. This is certainly not easy music, but its rewards are limitless. As for Max himself, he is clearly on a roll in his seventieth year, not least with this project, the much-delayed launch of his recordings website and the royal appointment. Long may he reign!
  Steve Lomas, classicalsource.com
• Commisioned by Naxos records and composed in 2002-2004 as the first four of a projected ten string quartets, "Max" has stretched the fabric of the post twentieth century string quartet. Utilizing the now familiar "Max" devices of the Orkney soundscape, his ongoing exposition of "magic square" tonal development , referential plainsong and, in the third quartet, his response to the Iraq war.
  
  Peter Maxwell Davies is a greatly gifted and prodigous composer. He has produced successful compositions and recordings of choral music for solo and massed voices, symphonic music for large and small groups, and combinations therof involving voice, orchestra, chamber groups. He has been actively involved in composition for more than thirty years. Maxwell Davies' music is highly original and demanding of the listener, often requiring repetitive listening/study to come to grips with his musical language.
  
  The first and second Quartets deal with Max' ever present Orkney sounds/colors. The familiar calls of sea birds and craggy pristine landscape of the North Atlantic are evoked uneeringly by his expanded writing for string quartet. Has any E-string been so thoroughly tested? Juxtaposed against vigorous viola and cello attacks, the range of tone and intensity of feeling is quite remarkable.
  
  In the notes supplied with these recordings, Peter Maxwell Davies cites his indebtedness to both Haydn and Beethoven as classical models for the structure of his quartet writing. The first movement of Quartet #1 uses the Haydn fast-slow-fast model while the opening bars of #1 are similar in mood to the opening of the Beethoven F sharp major piano sonata. Orkney free form fiddling is suggested as well. Layering of these and more sylistic devices is masterfully carried out, followed inevitably by deconstuction. The ebb and flow of this music, of vitality, becomes increasingly engaging with listener familiarity.
  Ronald Legum, www.audaud.com