The Naxos Quartets utilize a twelve-unit 'most perfect pandiagonal magic square' as a catalyst for musical invention, generating related but varied rhythmic and melodic outlines.
Composition History
The Naxos Quartets are a commission from Naxos for ten string quartets, with each work being premiered live and then recorded by the Maggini Quartet.
Performer Biography
The Maggini Quartet takes its name from Giovanni Paulo Maggini, a famous sixteenth-century Brescian violin-maker, an example of whose work is played by David Angel.
Performer Biography
The Maggini Quartet is renowned for championing British composers and has won numerous awards, including Gramophone Chamber Music CD of the Year 2001 for their Vaughan Williams recording.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Peter Maxwell Davies, the composer, conceived the Naxos Quartets as a sequence of ten works, designing an architecture that spans the entire cycle.
Composer Biography
Peter Maxwell Davies is the Master of the Queen's Music, and his adopted Orkney Islands, with their light, weather, and seascape, inspire his compositions.
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