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String Quartet No.5

String Quartet No.5 was commissioned for the Brodowski Quartet and first performed by them at the Southbank Centre, London, in April 2013. The quartet subsequently recorded the work for CD, together with my First Quartet (Toccata Classics TOCC CD-0197) and gave a number of further performances in the ensuing months. The work received its US première in November 2013, given by the Spokane Quartet.

The research context for all my string quartets emerges from a clearly defined aesthetic behind my quartet writing, an aesthetic that is outlined in the liner notes I have written to accompany the Toccata Classics CD recording. The research in the present work focusses on questions of re-engagement, within my own musical language, with the harmonic and structural momentum of Classical quartet-writing (Haydn and Beethoven in particular) and with the processes of motivic development characteristic of the music of that period. Developing novel instrumental techniques is not a research concern of this work; instead the research focusses on how to dramatise performer relationships, both overtly (the situational aspect of quartet performance) and internally (within the actual musical argument), but always with due regard for the medium’s historical context. The research was developed through several workshop sessions with the quartet across the 12 month period of the work’s composition as part of the Quartet’s three-year term as Ensemble-in-Residence (2011-14) at the University of Bristol.