Peter Maxwell Davies: Naxos Quartets Nos. 7 and 8

"Little did we know, when Max was commissioned by budget label Naxos to write 10 string quartets, what a late flowering odyssey it would be, all his mature skills coalescing within the intense discipline of Haydn-esque form."

"The fourth instalment of Peter Maxwell Davies's 10-quartet cycle for Naxos brings together the longest and shortest works in the series so far. The seven movements of Quartet No 7, each of them predominantly slow, last almost 55 minutes, while the single-movement eighth, dedicated to the Queen on her 80th birthday last year, is barely a third as long. Both, though, are typical of his beautifully crafted quartet style."