University of York Music Press

Thomas Simaku String Quartets / Kreutzer Quartet Kreutzer Quartet - Naxos 21st Century Classics 8.570428

"I came across the Albanian-born Thomas Simaku (b. 1958) in the World Music Days 2000, at which his Soliloquy for Violin solo stood out. I wrote about it as 'something for enterprising violinists to seek out - a piece of unaccompanied violin writing which brings out the instrument's natural genius for passionate expression, fully realised in the young Luxembourg violinist Vania Lecuit's riveting interpretation'. Now it has been joined by similar works for cello and viola, here the centre pieces of a survey of the chamber music for strings by this composer, who now teaches at York. They go well together and each is played compellingly by a member of the Kreutzers. These Solilquies could prove welcome interludes in chamber music recitals for various permutations of instruments."

Peter Grahame Woolf, Musical Pointers, May 2008

"Working in atonal terms, yet with a backdrop of salient musical ideas derived from the sounds of folk idioms heard in the Balkans, both quartets are in the mainstream of today's modernity... Simaku's aim in the Due Sotto-Voci is to have the violin singing in two voices with an 'orchestral body' that accompanies itself. And if you think that is impossible on one instrument, then suspend belief and listen. It was dedicated to Peter Sheppard Skaerved, the leader of the Kreutzer Quartet - the ensemble who give riveting performances of the quartets - and he is brilliantly responsive to the technical feats demanded."

Naxos Website, May 2008

"Anger briefly departed for Thomas Simaku's Second Quartet (Radius), almost an anthology of quartet techniques, beautifully concocted. Coming quickly to the boil, it then dissipates into ghostly shimmering and darting traceries, before slower lines gyrate around a steady cello."

York Press, 14th May 2008

Thomas Simaku at the York Spring Festival 2008 "Not all new music events happen in London. The University of York's annual Spring Festival features established repertoire alongside new works by the faculty and students. At two hours by train from London the Festival is well worth a visit. Highlights this year included a collaboration with spnm which brought us Kathryn Tickell; masterclasses on contemporary vocal repertoire from James Gilchrist; composing for harp from Alison Nicholls; and not least a visit from the Kreutzer Quartet, consummately led by Peter Sheppard Skaerved. Alongside Janacek, Bartok, Crawford Seeger and Kurtag, the Kreutzers programmed works by Thomas Simaku, an Albanian born British composer and York University lecturer. To coincide with their release on CD, we heard 'Radius' (Quartet No 2) and Soliloquy 1 for violin, played by Peter Sheppard Skaerved. Simaku's affinity with the string quartet comes from its unique ability to emulate the full range of all human voices, from basso profundo to way above the highest soprano. Its universal range symbolises an ideal universal narrator, the protagonist of the Soliloquies. Radius, a one movement piece which utilises the instruments' range to the full, demands extended string technique and great range of colour. The piece is an imaginary journey in search of expression through ancient and modern forms of utterance. Starting from the static drones so characteristic of Balkan music - whose roots may be traced back far into pre-history - this journey takes us into a contemporary sound world. Ancient and modern statements weave between the remotest times and the present. Radius is not a Goethean conversation but rather a unitary element formed from heterophonic textures. Linear in structure, its strategy is to transform the fundamental line - the primordial drone - as much as possible motivically, texturally and colouristically. Constant elements throughout are a refractory three note motive and a recurring E flat tone which resist all the changes occurring round them. Sections in diverse textures emerge from the primordial drone. Emulations of multiple voices humming and whispering, are contrasted with instrumental textures. Every so often explosive dynamic sections, also deriving from the drone, disrupt the linear process. At the climax the process comes to a precipitous halt, as if pulled up at the edge of an abyss, with 12 note chords across the full range. Thereafter our journey takes a complete change of direction into a leggiero section. The entire process concludes with deep chords, in close position uncannily evoking accordion sonorities, and then widely spaced. A coda states the harmonic skeleton, unelaborated. The Kreutzers played with great intelligence as well as virtuosity, except perhaps for a moment towards the end where the discourse seemed momentarily to stall. But probably far worse things happened at early performances of Beethoven's Opus 131. Soliloquy 1 is one of a triptych of virtuoso solo pieces for each of the string quartet instruments. Each is an extended single movement for an imaginary narrator who assumes a different character in each piece, adopting each instrument's idiomatic dialect. Peter Sheppard Skaerved as narrator spoke fluent violin with great artistry. Simaku's music reminds us that atonality works best in extended linear structures which provide us the space to become acquainted with an unfamiliar harmonic logic. As Dallapiccola has said, without tonal harmony composers have to be more, not less, lyrical."

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