Track Listing

1. I. March
2. II. In Nomine
3. III. Four Inventions And A Hymn
4. IV. Fugue
5. I. Moderato

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114527 in Music
• Released on: 2005-03-28
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds
• Running time: 56 minutes

Customer Reviews

Filling Out the Canvas
Alexander Goehr has commented about Maxwell Davies' startling engagement to write ten quartets for Naxos that "it's too good to be true. One can't write 10 quartets. One can, with luck, write one that is half-way reasonable". Max is well on the way to proving Goehr wrong - he's written nine of the ten and there's no sign of the fountain drying up.
There's nonetheless something in Goehr's comment; these two quartets give a flavour of both aspects of the question. The Third is a strong piece, written when Max was incensed with his native country's "illegal" decision over the Iraq war. Its four movements clearly draw heavily on the mainstream classical structural mould; Max is keen to encourage the listener to hear his quartet music as having strong Beethovenian and Haydnesque roots (which evidently is the case). But he is surely a bit optimistic when he marks the last movement "Fuga", opens it with a handful of notes of counterpoint, interrupts comprehensively with a kind of "nicht dieser töne" development, and then writes in his accompanying note that towards the end the listener is expected to have imagined that the pure text of the fugue has been "silently" playing in the background all along. But I am happy with the music & hope it will reach a wide audience as soon as possible.
The Fourth, in contrast, profiles a little evidence for Goehr's dictum. Max himself describes its genesis as picking out different children's games in the famous Pieter Brueghel painting of 1560. The consequence is a fantasia or even almost a medley, of relatively light structural cohesion. Max makes something of the thought that little games can sometimes and in some senses give rise to global-scale wargames.
It's a pity to relegate the Maggini to a quick note at the end, because their contribution (as so often) is outstanding. They have very strong sympathies with Max's (not always comfortable) language, and make the music breathe expressively in all sorts of felicitous ways. Naxos too are strongly to be commended for their role in all this - the CD of the 7th and 8th came out just the other day, and I am much looking forward to it.