University of York Music Press

'I believe that the ancient spirit in the musical idioms, in the deepest and widest sense, not only survives in our modern world, but is still capable taking its rightful place in contemporary music.' Simaku - a British composer aged 50, born in Albania and now lecturer in composition at the University of York - sees his work clearly. His music, restless, ever-shifting and exploratory, often curt and perfunctory, is contemporary. Yet, equally, it is imbued with 'the ancient spirit'. He is looking for a comprehensive musical language, to incorporate a vast array of techniques and idioms into a grammar of communicating through sound. He learned much from the folk music of South Albania, experienced during his years as Music Director in Tirana - where he was alerted to the drone, quasi-improvisation, inner dynamics, microtone inflections and much else, of primordial times. Has he, however, anything to express through his diverse, assorted grammar? Quietly, his ambition reaches to the primordial sounds of the universe, no less. Radius expresses the ancient territory that is Simaku's terrestrial ancestry - a land of heat, vegetation and restless earth. Voci Celesti depicts the voices of the heavens, showing him his relation to the sky. Due Sotto-Voci introduces a human voice, talking to itself, while creating its own accompaniment. (This eloquent venture was specially written for Peter Sheppard Skaerved, assuredly played.) The soliloquies were written as individual items over a period of 5 years. Simaku tells us that each starts with a single note - E flat. Each soliloquy ('speaking on one's own') constitutes, in effect, a meditation on sonority - engaging in a sonic adventure by proceeding from the E flat to elsewhere. Two factors determine the journey and the 'elsewhere': the 'colour' of the original note and the individual timbre of the particular instrument. Thus the journey by violin differs from that pursued by either the cello or the viola. In each soliloquy, however, the instrument returns home to E flat - 'in my beginning is my end'. Taken together, the soliloquies comprise not a suite but a triptych. These words of analysis are statements of intention rather than evaluations of achievement. (A workaday composer may camouflage his humdrum composition by covering it with a drapery of gleaming word-spin.) In short, the music may be worth reading about - is it also worth listening to? In Simaku's case, the answer is a definite 'Yes'. There is a keen-eared musician at work here, investigating an instrument as though it were virtually a human voice expressing its own spirit, physique and consciousness. This is a man with an agile musical mind - a modern sensibility, fully cognisant and appreciative of his rich musical inheritance. Each soliloquy probes the capacities of the individual instrument and tests its limits, technically and expressively. In this, Simaku resembles the Berio of the Sequenzas - together with the courage to be more lyrical. Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Neil Heyde and Morgan Goff each gave arresting demonstrations of their instruments. They put them through their paces, skilfully and committedly, with music of constant yet ever-changing interest. Altogether, the Kreutzer quartet musicians are outstanding. Playing the music exerts stringent demands on their exceptional technique. Performing the music - and being alert to the precise tonal change of each, often very swift, shift of mood and technique - demands a level of understanding and sympathy way above the average. Simaku is here to stay. So is the Kreutzer String quartet.

Thomas Simaku String Quartets / Kreutzer Quartet Thomas Simaku String Quartets 2 and 3: Soliloquy Cycle: Due Sotto-Voci played by the Kreutzer Quartet is available on Naxos 8.570428.