Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time, and is currently Master of the Queen’s Music. Plainchant, musical tradition and the haunting landscape of his adopted Orkney Islands all serve as inspiration to Maxwell Davies’ extraordinary and fecund imagination. This, the second release in a series of ten quartets commissioned by Naxos, features two contrasting works: Naxos Quartet No. 3, a spontaneous reaction to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Quartet No. 4, inspired by Brueghel’s famous painting of children’s games.