Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time, and is currently Master of the Queen’s Music. His musical idiom has been described by The New York Times as a combination of ‘medieval mysticism, modernist rigour and happy accessibility’. Maxwell Davies’s 10-quartet cycle commissioned by Naxos is now collected in this 5-CD boxed set. The composer has written of Quartet No 10, ‘in no way must this be a last quartet. I needed to leave the door open: I had enjoyed writing the Naxos Quartets so much, and perhaps even learned a thing or two, that more could, in theory, eventually flourish’.
‘The Maggini perform with the no-holds-barred commitment and jaw-dropping technical acumen we have come to expect from them throughout this massive project.’ (Gramophone)
‘Peter Maxwell Davies’s Naxos Quartet cycle, now complete on disc, make a hugely varied sequence in mood, manner, scale and inspiration’ (The Guardian)