Album: Various, Dance – The Smith Quartet (Signum)

The Smith Quartet shimmy their way through a vibrant selection of overt and covert dances by living composers: with John Adams' "Pavane" and Kevin Volans' "First Dance" the most familiar and Elena Kats-Chernin's "Naïve Waltz" the most elegant.

While Joe Cutler's "Folk Music" looks to the Tatra Mountains, Django Bates's "Peculiar Terms of Physical Intimacy" is inspired by Ireland. Donnacha Dennehy's infectious "STAMP" is a caffeinated riff on a 14th-century Saltarello.