University of York Music Press

Simaku's collaboration with the Paris-based Quatuor Diotima goes back to their performance of his Radius String Quartet No. 2 at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival of 2009. Written for and dedicated to Diotima, String Quartet No. 4 was first performed at Huddersfield Festival in 2011 and was broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Hear & Now. The piece received its European premiere on 26th September 2012 at Alicante International Festival. Simaku writes of the substantial 20-minute work: The piece consists of four movements and two virtuoso interludes strategically 'positioned' on either side of the slow third movement. A network of interconnections is established throughout the work and each movement ends in silence, whose role is not only to bring their respective 'chapters' to a close, but at the same time to create a necessary breathing space - there is no break (!), as such, between movements - they are linked by silence.