John Ramsay - String Quartets 1-4

Performed by THE FITZWILLIAM STRING QUARTET

John Ramsay is a professor of geology by profession but also a very serious composer, of both chamber and orchestral works. His style is chiefly tonal though he does utilise serial techniques on occasion. The four string quartets are perfect examples of the best of 'post-modernist' music, employing no artificial boundaries, but being pure self expression using the most appropriate musical forms. They are to some degree programmatic and thus Romantic in idiom too and thoroughly deserve a place in the chamber music repertoire. The quartets (score and parts) are to be published by Brandon Music in early 2012.

tracks:
String Quartet No. 1 in D minor
String Quartet No. 2 in E minor ("Shackleton")
String Quartet No. 3 in C major
String Quartet No. 4 ("Charles Darwin")