JOSÉ LUIS GRECO (b.1953): Celosías for Mezzo-Soprano and String Quartet, Mudas for Mezzo-Soprano and String Quartet, Trouble for String Quartet.

Description: Greco's idiom is basically tonal, though with a constant sense of shadowy chromatic unease providing tension, pulling away from tonal centers. The quartet, with its evocative title 'Trouble' is the most dissonant piece here; the stylistically disconcerting booklet notes do not explain the title, nor the sudden appearance of fragments of popular or folksong-like material, nor the brief guitar-like sliding chords - but hint at a kind of youthful restlessness, emotional angst as an end in itself. The songs - the 2001 set to texts by Bécquer, Machado and Lorca; those from 2008 transcribing Lorca's versions of Spanish songs - are more immediately approachable and tonal, though no less atmospheric, with strikingly original quartet textures in their introductions and a fine sense of sensuous yearning and hothouse languor in the unmistakable characteristic Spanish melodies. Spanish texts. Elena Gragera (mezzo), Magdalena Llamas (mezzo - Celosías), Mondriaan Quartet.