Something So Transporting Bright Kreutzer Quartet & Roderick Chadwickt

• Thomas Metcalf (b. 1966): Pixelating the River:
• 1 Metcalf: Pixelating the River 27:59
• Sadie Harrison (b. 1965): 10,000 Black Men Named George "The Multiple Burdens of Injustice" (Live):
• 2 Harrison: 10,000 Black Men Named George "The Multiple Burdens of Injustice" (Live) 05:37
• Joel Järventausta (b. 1995): On Blue (Live):
• 3 Järventausta: On Blue (Live) 11:00
• Gloria Coates (1933 - 2023): Piano Quintet:
• 4 Coates: Piano Quintet: I. Invisible, As Music 03:22
• 5 Coates: Piano Quintet: II. The Wizard-Fingers Never Rest 10:22
• 6 Coates: Piano Quintet: III. The Torrents of Eternity 05:58
• 7 Coates: Piano Quintet: IV. A Something So Transporting Bright 04:03
• Total Runtime 01:08:21

Info for Something So Transporting Bright

The Kreutzer Quartet has long been a leader in contemporary classical music and is known for its long-standing collaborations with a wide range of composers. This album, ‘Something So Transporting Bright’, is an example of their intensive collaboration with composers of several generations, from the late Gloria Coates, who worked with the quartet in 1992, to emerging voices such as Tom Metcalf and Joel Järventausta, both in their twenties. The four works presented here convey a profound sense of artistic exchange and reflect the quartet's unique position as performers and collaborators. The music presented here was created at a time of unprecedented global upheaval. The Corona pandemic gave even greater importance to creative partnerships, especially in the field of performance and recording. This album contains three works created under lockdown conditions, where the act of collaboration became a source of resilience and renewal. Järventausta and Metcalf's compositions are infused with themes of water and river, while Sadie Harrison's contributions are characterised by a profound response to the social unrest following the murder of George Floyd, reframing her ongoing work with the Thames as a backdrop.

The Kreutzer Quartet is a trusted ensemble for composers such as Hans Werner Henze, Judith Weir and David Matthews, pushing new boundaries with each recording and performance. Gloria Coates' final work, performed live at her last birthday party, marks a poignant conclusion to the quartet's decade-long collaboration with the composer, whose death in 2023 lends this album a reflective resonance.

Roderick Chadwick, piano
Kreutzer Quartet

Roderick Chadwick
is a pianist, teacher and writer on music. He has performed some of the most challenging works for the instrument, including Lachenmann’s Serynade at the inaugural London Contemporary Music Festival, and the first complete performance of Jeremy Dale Roberts’s Tombeau since its 1969 premiere at the hands of Stephen Kovacevich. He collaborates with some of the UK’s most adventurous musicians, with previous recordings for Divine Art/Métier including music by Michael Finnissy and David Gorton with members of the Kreutzer Quartet, and Mihailo Trandafilovski, Mozart and Ole Bull with violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved. Other recordings to date include Stockhausen’s Mantra with Mark Knoop and Newton Armstrong – which was described as ‘a real contender’ by Gramophone magazine – and works by Gloria Coates, Sadie Harrison and Alex Hills.

Roderick is a member of ensembles CHROMA and Plus-Minus, performing with them at festivals such as Huddersfield, Ultima (Oslo) and the 2019 Warsaw Autumn Festival. His first performance on BBC Radio 3 was at the age of 14 (the Britten Gemini Variations live from the Aldeburgh Festival), and broadcasts since have included solo works by Laurence Crane, Richard Barrett and Will Gregory.

In 2018 Roderick published Messiaen’s ‘Catalogue d’oiseaux’, From Conception to Performance, co-authored with Peter Hill. He is a regular performer of Messiaen’s works, including the entire Catalogue d’oiseaux and La Fauvette des jardins in a single concert event. In 2008 he was artistic advisor to the Royal Academy of Music for their part in the Southbank Centre’s Messiaen centenary festival.

He attended Chetham’s School in Manchester in the 1980s, studying with Heather Slade-Lipkin, and later moved to London to learn with Hamish Milne. He lives in South London and is Reader in Music at the Royal Academy of Music.

“The redoubtable Roderick Chadwick” (The Strad)

“Possessor of devastating musicality and technique” (Sunday Times)

Kreutzer Quartet
has established itself as one of the most sought after string quartets in the UK. They appear regularly at the major London venues and have made many live and studio recordings for the BBC, and major networks all over Europe. They have taken their extremely eclectic programmes to Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Serbia, Montenegro, Sardinia, the US, Spain, Cyprus, Poland, and Lithuania. Recent critical and publicly acclaimed performances have been at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, de Doelen, Rotterdam, Quartet 2000, Manchester International, and the Vilnius Philharmonic Festival.

The Kreutzers have a busy recording schedule, reflecting their commitment to musical exploration. Following the critical acclaim accorded their releases of cycles of quartets by Gerhard, Weir, Finnissy, Birtwhistle, Tippett, David Matthews and Hallgrímsson, the quartet are in the process of recording and releasing ground-breaking recordings of contemporary music while also keeping a hand in the classical repertoire with a forthcoming Metier disc of Beethoven. They have a particularly strong association with the Metier label, and have also recorded for Naxos, Toccata, NMC, Chandos, PARMA, Guild and New Focus.

The Kreutzer Quartet was formed in 1988. The group quickly became recognised as one of the foremost young string quartets in the U.K. The Kreutzer Quartet's rise did not occur despite its adventurous repertory, but in many ways because of it: from the beginning, they worked closely with many of the contemporary composers mentioned above, especially Tippett, Matthews, Weir, Hallgrímsson, and a few others. The group garnered numerous awards and citations in the coming years, including being selected for the 1996-1997 National Federation of Music Societies Tour.

The Kreutzer Quartet's recordings soon began drawing attention, too. Among its earlier successes were a pair of Metier CDs from 2000: String Quartets 1 & 2 by Roberto Gerhard and Catalan Quartets, an album that offered quartets by Josep Soler, Miguel Roger, and Albert Sardá. In 2002 Naxos began issuing recordings by the Kreutzer Quartet, the initial CD offering Quartets 1, 5 & 6 by Germany-based American composer Gloria Coates.

Booklet for Something So Transporting Bright