University of York Music Press

The quintet, for two violins, viola and two cellos, is dedicated to Erika Fox and to the memory of Dale Roberts' teacher, Priaulx Rainier, and was inspired by Rainier, by Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Edvard Munch's 'Frieze of Life' paintings and the 'passionate and unquenchable' poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva. The work is in two parts and sits either side of the interval of the performance. As in To the Lighthouse, Part 1 ends with a party and 'takes the form of a dance employing rhythms and unusual tunings associated with Norwegian 'slatter''. Paul Conway writes: 'In a further reference to Woolf's novel, the death of Mrs Ramsay is recalled by the silencing of the viola after the interval, and the resultant void revealed in the musical fabric'. Although Jeremy Dale Roberts has suggested that Part 1 may be performed on its own, Conway says that the 'moving second half seemed to be a necessary corollary of the first.' The second half takes the listener through 'various stages of grief and loss, from stunned impassivity to raging anger and finally a grudging reconciliation to the situation via memory (the latter communicated dramatically by the reappearance of the viola, playing off-stage) ... casting long and heavy shadows over the previous three movements'. Conway says that the work 'cries out for the repeated hearings a recording can offer'. He concludes by saying: 'This outstanding score has taken several years to come to achieve performance, but it has been well worth the wait. A deeply personal work of universal significance, it has the rare courage to demand a high degree of emotional and intellectual involvement from its audience, and such involvement is amply rewarded. The Kreutzer Quartet and cellist Bridget McRae, for whom this piece was written and who have been involved in its creative development at every step of the way, met its huge technical and interpretative challenges with prodigious virtuosity and profound musicianship.' Paul Conway 'London, Wigmore Hall and Wilton's Music Hall: James Clarke and Jeremy Dale Roberts' Tempo / Volume 67 / Issue 266 / October 2013, pp 85-87