MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger



Usk Recordings


Timothy SALTER (b.1942)
Piano Quartet (2006) [15:29]
Ensemble na Mara
rec. Norden Farm, Maidenhead, Berkshire, August 2007  
USK 1228CDS [15:29]
Experience Classicsonline


This is slightly unusual territory for me, a classical CD single. It contains a solitary work, Timothy Salter’s Piano Quartet written in 2006 and played by the Ensemble na Mara in August of the following year. Usk is Salter’s own label devoted to recording new work, a laudable aim. He has put out similar discs before – another such has been reviewed on this site, which was dedicated to Salter’s After the Sun, for baritone, oboe (doubling cor anglais) and piano.

I won’t reprise the detail of Salter’s musical life, which has been soundly recorded in Christopher Thomas’s review, but will note the composer’s admission that the greatest challenge of a Piano Quartet is to blend the three string instruments successfully with the piano as one blends the string instruments with a piano in a Piano Quartet. Or, he asks - and tends to answer in the affirmative - is this medium more akin to a Piano Trio in this respect.

His own Piano Quartet is cast in three movements, marked Vigorous, Fluid and finally With nervous energy. The first movement opens perhaps a little influenced by Shostakovich – there is certainly a sense of motoric dynamism – before becoming absorbed in an almost crepuscular mood that hints at Bartók in its pizzicati and reflective reveries. Sonorities and textures remain clear and notably well balanced.

The central movement opens with spectral harmonics, a questing piano response giving way to more precise chording against the eeriness of the strings, as the piano takes the leading voice. String tremolandi add colour, the violin and cello sounding rich as they take voicings against the piano’s strenuously fluid – the movement designation is apt – and particular line. When the piano becomes more static the strings embark on a pizzicato episode, and the mood darkens, glimmers in the gloaming. The cello forages in its lower reaches, the pizzicatos become more laden.

This prepares one for the tensile finale with its taut melodic morsels and deft piano chording laced with string line musings. The ‘second subject’ offers fine contrastive material before the opening brisk, quivering figures return for a scurry and scarper close.

This is a fine work. It satisfies its composer’s intentions in respect of fluidity and balance, it manages to integrate and characterise with imagination, and it keeps auditory interest going unflaggingly to the end. Congratulations to the Ensemble na Mara as well, who commissioned it, and to the RVW Trust that made funds available.

Jonathan Woolf


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.