“The tautly argued, half-hour-long, misleadingly titled Little Symphony (an elegy for Goehr’s conductor father, Walter) impresses once more as a profound synthesis of 12-tone and classical approaches to large-scale form, and is fascinating to follow. The String Quartet No 2 is a searching exploration of texture and complex metre (and unmetred effects). With its headlong inventiveness, it seems to continue where Schoenberg’s quartets leave off. The powerfully compact, two-movement Piano Trio is a 20th-century classic.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.