String Quartet No. 2: La Maestà
About
12 minutes
Written for The Nossek Quartet, Manchester and first performed by them, University of Bristol, May 1995.
SPNM-promoted performance by the Sorrel String Quartet at The Cheltenham International Festival of Music, July 1997
Extracted for inclusion on SPNM’s CD “Short Cuts”, April 1998
First broadcast performance (also by the Sorrel String Quartet, also from Cheltenham) live on BBC Radio 3, July 8th 1999, with interview. Repeat broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 20th August 2001
Above all, this work owes its existence to my fascination with Italy’s bells – particularly those in Florence. With this in mind, the first clip shows the dissolution and resolution of the dissonance and complexity built up in the first movement into something quite new! The second clip is taken from the end of the final fifth movement, where quite another kind of resolution is brought about. The performers are the Sorrel Quartet.
Audio
- 1String Quartet No.2 - 1 Firenze bells extract
- 2String Quartet No.2 - 5 La Tempesta extract
Sample Score Pages
Reviews
“It is a tribute to the Mr Palmer’s sureness of vision and the Sorrels’ playing that this work was in no sense dwarfed by the works of Haydn, Mozart and Shostakovitch”
(Roger Jones reviewing Cheltenham Festival performance of String Quartet No. 2: La Maestà)