Efin68

PRELUDES

PRELUDES by Edmund Finnis

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello
featured on the album, SONG
released 9^thSeptember 2022
DECCA

SHADES

String Quartet No. 1 “Aloysius”
String Quartet No. 2

Manchester Collective

“What the two works have in common is the wonderful refinement of the string writing, its airy lyricism and fragile, touching beauty.”
The Guardian

“Having collaborated on several projects to date, Edmund Finnis and Manchester Collective enjoy a synergy that shines through this short but exquisite mini-album comprising his first and second string quartets. […]
Finnis has spoken of his love of communicating through sound, and of his desire to create beauty. Both are wonderfully achieved here, in music that’s exceptionally refined but never rarefied thanks to a graininess that speaks to the physicality of touch and breath. […]
Both works explore worlds of colour as if illuminated from the inside through the push-pull of timbre, texture and shape: not so much moment by moment – though the lines are fluently crafted – but through the creation of a musical space that’s at once richly inward looking and expansive.
[…] the echoes of consort music abound, the whole performed with captivating skill and a sense of searching co-adventure.”
★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine

THE CENTRE IS EVERYWHERE

THE CENTRE IS EVERYWHERE
by Edmund Finnis

Manchester Collective
Bedroom Community

“…the haunting, iridescent work by Edmund Finnis at the centre of this compelling release celebrating five years of Manchester Collective. Commissioned by the ensemble and scored for 12 string players, the piece has an ageless, ancient-yet-modern quality: like a shimmering ghost of Lawes’ viol consorts, a fine latticework of line and colour is viewed through a kaleidoscope of grainy harmonies and whistling white noise. The twin push-pull of emotion and texture encapsulates a performance ethos that extends to the contrasting works either side, uniting them across supposed aesthetic distance.”
★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine