At first glance, you might think Purcell and Britten have nothing in common bar their English origin. However, when you dig deeper you find that Britten was somewhat of a fanboy of Purcell and frequently looked to his predecessor (by over 200 years) for inspiration. With this in mind, the American Emerson String Quartet paired these two composers and their most closely aligned works on this new album.

Using Britten’s own performing score of the Purcell Chacony, there are so many similarities bet ween the two composers, it’s quite startling on a first listen of the album. Britten looked to this work, Chacony in particular (performed as the first track on this album) to inspire the last movement of his String Quartet No 2. However, Britten’s use of the Chaconne form (a consistent repeated pattern throughout a movement) has been updated and tweaked to reflect the modern ideas of rhythm and form. These are the type of works that are worth listening to, studying with a score and returning to again to understand the full impact of the composer’s ideas.

This is the first recording for the Emerson String Quartet on the Decca Gold label and also with their new cellist, Paul Watkins. Each of these musicians are highly accomplished performers in their own right, but the question that’s always important in chamber music is: do they play well together? In music like this, however, it’s not quite that simple. With each part being quite soloistic in style, they must make their own voices clear – and in this, they excel. Somehow they blend their tone colours, while maintaining their autonomy in each of their musical phrasings, to create an interesting and eminently repeatable recording.

Kate Rockstrom