Simon Holt, Donnacha Dennehy and Anthony Gilbert, the composers featured on this inaugural ‘Bracing Change’ album of new string commissions, are as contrasting in their responses to it as they are individual in character across their musical output. Together, their new works – two quartets and a quintet – are a reminder that the medium has thrived for some 250 years not merely by adapting to change, but by inspiring all sorts of new music at its pioneering edge.

‘Renewing the chamber music repertoire is central to the co-commissioning partnership between Wigmore Hall, The Radcliffe Trust and NMC Recordings. We are delighted to support Simon Holt’s 3rd Quartet with the JACK Quartet, Donnacha Dennehy’s The weather of it with the Doric String Quartet and Anthony Gilbert’s Haven of Mysteries with the Carducci String Quartet and Guy Johnston. We are very pleased to support some of the finest musicians of their generation, achieving the highest standards of their interpretations in modern compositions. I have no doubt that this recording will be praised for its vitality, freshness and the expressive power of new music. Wigmore Hall’s wholehearted commitment to continue building the chamber music repertoire is central to this project, and we look forward to further recordings yet to be released in this series.’ - John Gilhooly OBE, Wigmore Hall Director

Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, London

Reviews

The three works – two of them string quartets, the third a string quintet with the Schubert lineup of two cellos, rather than Mozart’s two violas – inhabit utterly different musical worlds. ... Donnacha Dennehy’s The Weather of It, played here by the Doric Quartet, was composed immediately after his opera The Last Hotel premiered at the Edinburgh festival in 2015. There’s no overarching narrative to the 20-minute single movement but a sequence of changing moods, ... with pulsing, fragile ideas that warily circle each other before eventually colliding in the disconcerting climax. It’s a mysterious piece, but, like all the works here, a genuinely intriguing one. Andrew Clements

The Guardian 17 May 2017