This is the third volume in the Toccata Classics cycle of the complete string string quartets of David Matthews (b. 1943).

The American critic Robert Reilly described the music on Volume One as ‘some of the most concentrated, penetrating writing for this medium in the past 30 years or more. It is musical thinking of the highest order and quartet writing in the great tradition of Beethoven, Bartok, Britten, and Tippett’.

Volume Three contains Matthews’ first three numbered quartets, written between 1969 and 1978 This third CD in the series presents the first three works in the cycle along with an early contrapuntal study and an arrangement of Scriabin.

The Second Quartet, as the composer says, ‘shows the influence of the kind of minimalism in songs by The Velvet Underground, and aims for the energy and dynamism of The Who’.

The Kreutzer Quartet – Peter Sheppard Skærved and Mihailo Trandafilovski, violins; Morgan Goff, viola; Neil Heyde, cello – have worked with David Matthews for many years now; many of his quartets were written with them in mind. The Kreutzer Quartet is also engaged on a project to record the string quartets of Beethoven’s friend and colleague Anton Reicha, also for Toccata Classics.