Arditti String Quartet - Benedict Mason: Chamber Works (2019)

The English composer, Benedict Mason, has been called "one of the major talents in music today" by the critic Julian Anderson. The three works recorded on this disc introduce the work of a startlingly original voice. Mason's music incorporates a huge range of expression- from commonplace to the sublime. Barriers between tonality and non-tonality are swept aside easily by the force of Mason's musical argument, his broadly inclusive vision calling to mind such visionaries as Janacek, Mahler and Ives. Indeed, ghosts of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ives and even Elgar occasionally haunt the discourse of Mason's surreal landscape, projecting a brilliantly refractory sub-text, the music's surface always alive with humor and highly detailed invention.

The virtuosic performances on this disc are ample testimony to the high esteem in which Benedict Mason is held by his English and German colleagues- members of three of Europe's leading contemporary ensembles.

“Benedict Mason made an arresting entry into the record catalogue with his orchestral work and this new disc confirms his position as one of the most provocative and imaginative composers of his generation.” - Gramophone