Martin Butler's contribution to the chamber domain has been a significant one. All of these pieces were written over the past decade with the Schubert Ensemble in mind: the earliest being American Rounds – which combines American folk idioms with a rhythmic impetus whose Stravinskian incisiveness is anything but mindlessly post-minimalist. Equally engaging are the 'River Songs' derived from the chamber opera A Better Place, its restrained yet evocative mood distilled in the threnody for Siward and the effulgent lyricism of that for Suzanne. On a lighter note, the two Scarlatti transcriptions – respectively vigorous and poetic – evince a keen ingenuity. The most striking works, however, are the two piano pieces: Nathaniel's Mobile – which intercuts linear and harmonised melody so the music evolves, without intensifying, towards its conclusion; and Funérailles, which adds a more disruptive element that opens out the music's dynamic and emotional range on the way to its quiet yet restive close. Sequenza notturna passes through several expressive vignettes, given focus by the unassuming viola melody that underpins them, while WaldenSnow is a 'postcard' from New England of touching limpidity.
The performances are as sensitive and assured as one would expect from the Schubert Ensemble, continuing their laudable contribution to British new music, and the sound is a model of chamber balance. Informative notes from John Fallas, and a disc that should extend the audience for a composer whose idiom – distinctive but accessible and never remotely facile – is nowhere better represented than here.

The performances are as sensitive and assured as one would expect from the Schubert Ensemble, continuing their laudable contribution to British new music, and the sound is a model of chamber balance. Informative notes from John Fallas, and a disc that should extend the audience for a composer whose idiom - distinctive but accessible and never remotely facile - is nowhere better represented than here.

[Butler’s] virtuoso skill at placing and displacing, nudging and manipulating rhythms creates a brilliant pattern of light and movement.