Colin Matthews: Divertimento

Colin Matthews: Chamber works (NMC D149 – Ancora Series)
Oboe Quartet No.1, String Quartet No.2,
Divertimento for Double String Quartet, Five Concertinos for Wind Quintet, Triptych

‘[Colin Matthews is] the Isambard Kingdom Brunel of contemporary music: master of great time machines, steamy with energy derived from pulse and from massive,
surging harmony, and openly displaying their structural engineering, all finished with a craftsman's care.' Paul Griffiths

Most of the works on this disc were originally available on vinyl only; the String Quartet No.2, performed by the Brindisi Quartet, has never been released.

Ancora Series
The NMC Ancora series is devoted to the re-issue of important recordings of contemporary British works which have been deleted from other record labels.
Recent additions to the series include the Gramophone award winning performance of Harrison Birtwistle’s opera Punch and Judy and David Blake’s Violin Concerto.
This autumn we are re-releasing Birtwistle’s Secret Theatre performed by the London Sinfonietta under Elgar Howarth.

"The most important item is the newcomer, a 1996 recording of Matthews' Second String Quartet. Completed in 1989, it's a taut, compelling piece that brings together all the ingredients of Matthews' musical language at the time and weaves them into a rigorous discourse that has an almost Elliott Carter-like energy and intensity."
The Guardian