Living up to its reputation of presenting music that is out of the ordinary and off the beaten track, SOMM Recordings is releasing Wood on the Tracks with Cellophonics, four of the UK’s finest cellists who have been expanding the repertoire with a growing list of exciting new works and rediscovered lost masterpieces.

The quartet—Christopher Allan, Adrian Bradbury, Ian Burdge, and Ben Rogerson—having gathered a whole concert’s worth of commissions and discoveries, was invited by SOMM to record this debut album. Wood on the Tracks includes first recordings of works commissioned from Simon Baggs, Guy Barker, Roderick Elms, Julia Simpson, and Rowland Sutherland—recorded in the presence of the composers—and forgotten gems by William Alwyn, York Bowen, and Marie Dare.

The works by Alwyn and Bowen are also first recordings. Amongst the forgotten gems is the first work on the programme, Suite for Four Cellos, by composer-pianist, York Bowen (1884–1961. The parts and full score of the suite were discovered in manuscript by Ben Rogerson in the music library of his late grandfather Haydn Rogerson, one-time principal cello of the Hallé Orchestra.

Another rediscovery is a set of Two Irish Tunes for Cello Quartet by flautist, teacher, and composer William Alwyn (1905–1985). These had their first performance in 1933 in the Lecture Hall at the Royal Academy of Music, where Alwyn was a professor of composition. The third rediscovery comes from the most significant Scottish-born cellist–composer of her day, Marie Dare (1902–1976). Her distinctive set of works for cello includes Six Pieces For Cello Quartet. From these, Cellophonics performs IV. Aria. The first commissioned work on this programme is a Divertimento for Cello Quartet by Roderick Elms, who writes: “I wanted to explore the wonderfully lush textures available for four cellos, and this approach is evident in the lyrical central section.” This is offset by rhythmic, somewhat jazz-influenced, outer sections.

A commission from wide-ranging composer Julia Simpson is Mariposa, which traces the incredible four-generation journey of migration made each year by the monarch butterfly, from Canada to the mountains of western Mexico and back. The multi-gifted Rowland Sutherland is a poet as well as a musician, and his poem HOPE—composed in Japanese Haibun style—lends its name and theme to the work he wrote for Cellophonics.

The title work, Wood on the Tracks, is by trumpeter and composer Guy Barker, who says it was only after he completed the work that he realized he had written a piece about trains. The program ends with Soliloquy by conductor, composer, and violinist Simon Baggs. He writes, “Although written for four cellos, the work stands as the utterance of one voice.”