LENNOX BERKELEY (1903-1989): String Quartets No. 1, Op. 6, No. 2, Op. 15 & No. 3, Op. 76.

Description: The first quartet, of 1935, has an astringent neo-classicism which recalls the composer's years in Paris as well as the influence of Bartók, a style which is absorbed into a more personal style by the timeofthe second (1941) while the third is a late work (1970) whose four movements are tightly organized and argued, distilled into an 18-minute total timing which seems to not waste a single note. Maggini Quartet.