Album: Edinburgh Quartet, Howard Blake: Spieltrieb. String Trio. A Month In The Country (Naxos)

Andy Gill
Friday 15 July 2011 00:00 BST
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Howard Blake is best known for his film and ballet scores, several of which are included here as revised suites to accompany the newly-commissioned Spieltrieb.

His music for the 1986 film A Month In The Country, about recovering Great War casualties, is gently pastoral until darkness falls with the mix of pathos and terror in the third movement Elegy, in stark contrast to the languorous sensuality of his ballet suite Leda And The Swan and the wistful "Walking In The Air", from The Snowman. There are affinities with, variously, Arvo Pärt, Bernard Herrman and Beethoven, and a succession of emotionally-involving themes are skilfully negotiated by the Edinburgh Quartet.

DOWNLOAD THIS Spieltrieb; Leda And The Swan; Walking In The Air

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