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