The Tippett Quartet, Sir Michael Morpurgo - Noah Max: String Quartets Nos. 1-4 (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25 "The Man Who Planted Trees": I. Andante desolato
02. String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25 "The Man Who Planted Trees": II. Maestoso. Expansive
03. String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25 "The Man Who Planted Trees": III. Vivo
04. String Quartet No. 3, Op. 41
05. String Quartet No. 4, Op. 45
06. String Quartet No. 2, Op. 37: I. Andante glaciale
07. String Quartet No. 2, Op. 37: II. Intensamente con ira
08. String Quartet No. 2, Op. 37: III. Unearthly, Mesmeric

It is remarkable not only that the London-based Noah Max (b. 1998) should have composed four string quartets by his mid-twenties; their stylistic range is also surprisingly wide. No. 1, which sets Jean Giono’s story ‘The Man who Planted Trees’, narrated here by Sir Michael Morpurgo, has distant roots in English pastoralism, but the refracted lines, furtive colours and ecstatic textures of Nos. 2 and 3 are much closer to European modernism, with echoes of Kurtág and Ligeti. No. 4 is a wild ride, its manic, swirling rhythms interrupted by passages of whispered intimacy that eventually draw it into silence.

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