Alexander Goehr: (b1932) Since Brass, nor Stone Pavel Haas Quartet Colin Currie, percussion The Nash Ensemble NMC D187 • The young Czech Pavel Haas Quartet has won numerous awards including the Gramophone most coveted 'Recording of the Year' Award in 2011. 'The world’s most exciting string quartet' The Times • Goehr studied composition with Olivier Messiaen. The music scene of Paris made a great impression on him and he became good friends with Pierre Boulez and was heavily involved in the serialist avant-garde movement of the early 1960s. This new recording of Goehr's chamber music, written between the years of 2002-2012 and featuring artists critically hailed as 'chamber music royalty' (The Nash Ensemble - Sunday Times), 'one of the most polished and musically exciting young string quartets in the world today' (Pavel Haas Quartet - Washington Post) and 'a miracle of cool-headed brilliance' (Colin Currie - Daily Telegraph) can not fail to delight. The title work, Since Brass nor Stone, is inspired by Shakespeare's 65th Sonnet – a poem concerned with the ravaging effects of time on the physical world – and begins rather comically with a literal play of the opening line 'Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea', with Chinese gong and bell tree, followed by stone drum, and log drum to lion's roar and rainstick, all in the space of the opening four bars.   The combination of percussion with string quartet is an unusual one but Goehr successfully balance the timbres with some remarkably striking and technically diffi cult writing for both. … around Stravinsky is inspired by Stravinsky's Pastorale with Goehr's Prelude and Rondo written to be performed either side of it.   The Quintet for Clarinet and Strings motet-like structure is infl uenced by a Josquin des Prez mass and themes from it can be heard throughout the work.   The duo for clarinet and violin, Manere, is based on a medieval plainchant, built into a series of rhapsodic and free-fl owing variations and the most recent piece on this recording – Largo Siciliano, for horn, violin and piano - uses the dotted rhythm of the Baroque dance, taken through a series of transformations which explore the timbres of the three instruments before returning to the original stately Siciliano. TRACK LISTING   1. Since Brass, nor Stone… Op 80 (2008)       Fantasy for string quartet and percussion     13'29 …around Stravinsky for violin and wind quartet Op 72 (2002)   2. Prelude, ‘Dushkin’     3'15   3. Stravinsky: Pastorale     2'41   4. Introduzione and Rondo     5'28 Quintet Op 79 (2007)       For clarinet and strings   5. I Maestoso     1'00   6. II Poco meno mosso     1'09   7. III Tempo 1     1'38   8. IV Tempo 1, poco scherzando     1'13   9. V Tempo 1, poco scherzando     0'54 10. VI Andante     3'34 11. VII Tempo 1     1'29 12. VIII Lento     1'24 13. IX Mosso, allegro     2'01 14. X Saraband     4'18 Manere Op 81 (2008)       For clarinet and violin 15. = 80 ma poco liberamente     0'51 16. come sopra     0'56 17. poco meno, sostenuto     0'54 18. tempo 1     1'53 19. meno mosso     1'22 20. in tempo     0'54 21. andante     0'41 22. in tempo dell’inizio, ma libaremente     0'53 23. in tempo     0'52 24. Largo Siciliano Op 91 (2012)       For horn, violin and piano     20'13 Total Timing     73'45 NMC Recordings are distributed in Australia by Rockian Trading, P.O.Box 44, Briar Hill, Vic, 3088, Australia Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879