BERKELEY, Lennox: Quartets (Maggini Quartet) (Naxos: 8.570415)

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Central to Lennox Berkeley's chamber music output are the three string quartets that occur at regular intervals during the first half of his career. The First Quartet suggests the presence of Bart??k and Stravinsky, its style recalling Berkeley's years in Paris, while by the time of the Second Quartet, in which the balance between formal clarity and expressive depth is effortlessly achieved, these influences have been thoroughly absorbed. Written in 1970, the Third Quartet features one of the composer's finest slow movements, a 'Lento' which begins with ghostly harmonics before building to a climax of considerable intensity.