Chamber, Quartets, Oboe Quartets

Using a modern sound, the orchestra simply establishes a spruce, finely tailored context for the solo line [in the C Major Oboe Concerto]...The playing here is of an equally polished, characterful,... — Gramophone Magazine, September 2013 More…

To me, the particular delight of this new recording is the Quartet in F for oboe, which Manco of course plays on flute. Listening to the winsome, melancholy Adagio of that quartet as played... — Fanfare, March/April 2021 More…

Maxwell Davies’s intensity of expression is here distilled into chamber music, by turns simple and complex, furious and tender…The disc closes with the composer’s very last work, a brief movement... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2017, 4 out of 5 stars More…

This amiable, accomplished selection from a composer of great acumen hails from northern England — as he did — and comprises seven items...Oboe astringency sorts well with Rawsthorne’s expressive... — Sunday Times, 25th March 2018 More…

Contemporary composers sink or swim in a sea of perplexingly diverse memories and stimuli – a condition that has been particularly acute since the 1970s. These chamber works from the 1980s show... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

This highly enjoyable performance is directed from the first-violin chair by Alexander Janiczek, who spins a fine, lithe line, with minimal vibrato, articulating the phrasing with deft bowing.... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2012, 4 out of 5 stars More…