The three quartets on this recording were composed for, and premiered by the Allegri String Quartet between 2010 and 2013. I first heard the group ‘live’ on the 6th of May 2009, in an all-Haydn concert given in the lovely surroundings of St Brandon’s Church, Brancepeth, the musical experience enhanced by the view through the clear glass windows of the trees dancing along in the late evening sunlight. The programme included Haydn’s quartet opus 71 No.2. In its first movement Allegro the instruments enter in quick succession around the circle, initiated by the cello’s bold two-note motif. This is such a striking idea. What would happen if the cello were to send round a whole barrage of such motifs. Here, thanks to Papa Haydn, I was gifted the idea for what became the fourth movement of my Quartet No.2. - Alec Roth

Alec Roth's former posts include Founder/Director of the Royal Festival Hall Gamelan Programme and Southbank Gamelan Players; Music Director of the Baylis Programme, English National Opera; and Associate Composer, Opera North. His many collaborations with the Indian writer Vikram Seth, for which he is best known, include the opera Arion and the Dolphin, numerous songs and song-cycles, and the tetralogy The Rivered Earth, co-commissioned by the Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield Festivals 2006-9. He has developed particularly fruitful working relationships with the tenor Mark Padmore and guitarist Morgan Szymanski, and is currently Composer in Residence with Jeffrey Skidmore’s choir Ex Cathedra.