Even by the high standards of previous Maggini/ Naxos offerings, this is an exceptionally fine disc.
If you don't know Frank Bridge's First Quartet of 1906, its ardour and melodic fecundity compel investigation. The Maggini Quartet give a performance to match, of sweep, assurance and affection.
At the same time, their rapt concentration and daring range of expression (especially in the slow movement) banish for good any vestige of salon-room cosiness; the return of the opening material at the quartet's close has never seemed more wistfully inevitable.
That the Magginis are no less attuned to the far more challenging sound world of the 1926 Third Quartet is at once evident from the articulate authority and thrust they impart to the introductory bars (which sow the seeds for so much that follows). Both this work and the searching Piano Sonata, completed the previous year, represent the first wholly convincing examples of Bridge's liberating brand of English expressionism.
The Magginis are scrupulously alive to anguished introspection which runs through the work: the ghostly visions that stalk the central Andante conmoto and finale's twilit coda linger long in the memory here. A superb coupling, impeccably captured by the Walton/Thomason production team and well annotated by Andrew Burn.