Max: String Quartets

It is not only remarkable that London-based Noah Max (* 1998) has already composed four string quartets by the mid-twenties, but also that their stylistic range is surprisingly broad. No. 1, which sets Jean Giono's story "The Man Who Planted Trees", told here by children's author Sir Michael Morpurgo, has distant roots in English pastoral poetry, but the broken lines, the hidden colors and the ecstatic textures of Nos. 2 and 3 are much closer to European modernism, with echoes of Kodály and Ligeti. In contrast, No. 4 is a wild ride, whose manic, swirling rhythms are interrupted by passages of whispered intimacy, which finally dissolve into silence. His music is performed by the renowned Tippet Quartet, which was recently named Record of the Month by Gramophone magazine for its recording of the Górecki quartets.