- Home
- Listen
- News
- Biography
- Works
- Orchestral
- Symphony No.1
- The Burning of the Leaves (version for Baritone and Orchestra)
- 2011 Concertante Variations (Presteigne Concerto) for Wind Quintet, Timpani and Strings
- Angry Lament
- Sixteen Sunrises
- Symphony No.5
- Symphony No.2
- Sea-Change
- The Flight of Icarus
- Channel Firing
- Partita
- Symphony No.3
- The Spindle of Necessity
- Piano Concerto
- Tenebrae
- Symphony No. 5
- In Sea-Cold Lyonesse
- Binyon Songs (version for Baritone and Orchestra)
- Forbidding Mourning
- The Art of Beginning
- Ensemble
- Chamber
- Instrumental
- Choral
- Programme notes
- Black Castles
- The Flight of Icarus
- Agamemnon’s Tomb
- Aurora
- The Borders of Sleep – Nine Poems by Edward Thomas
- Channel Firing
- Eden
- Orion
- The Phagotus of Afranio
- Piano Sonata
- Sonata for Violin and Piano
- A Starlit Dome
- String Quartet No.2
- String Quartet No.3
- String Quartet No.4
- Symphony No.3
- Tenebrae
- String Quartet No.2
- Orchestral programme notes
- Instrumental programme notes
- Chamber programme notes
- Brass programme notes
- Solo vocal programme notes
- Choral programme notes
- Spindle of Necessity
- Gaia Symphony
- Tsunami
- Men of Stone – Symphonic Suite for Brass Band
- Wildfire
- Sea-Change
- Piano Concerto
- Valedictions
- Snowbound
- Insomnia
- John Pickard: Chamber Music CD
- Binyon Songs
- Mass in Troubled Times Programme Note
- Brass
- Solo vocal
- Transcriptions
- Orchestral
- Performances
- Recordings
- Reviews
- Review of Gaia Symphony
- The Flight of Icarus
- Reviews of Norrköping Symphony Orchestra CD of The Flight of Icarus, The Spindle of Necessity and Channel Firing
- The Burning of the Leaves
- BIS Record CD of Piano Concerto, Sea-Change & Tenebrae – International Record Review
- BBC Music Magazine – Piano Concerto, Sea-Change and Tenebrae
- Tenebrae reviewed on MusicWeb International.com
- BIS Records CD of Piano Concerto Sea Change Tenebrae Classica
- Guardian review String Quartets Nos 1 and 5
- Classical Lost and Found review string quartets nos 1 and 5
- International Record Review String Quartets Nos 1 and 5
- Toccata New Chamber Music, Volume 2.
- BBC Review Toccata Classics Chamber Music Volume Two
- Musical Opinion – an overview of The Symphonies of John Pickard
- In concert – Bristol University SO / John Pickard – The Vision of Cleopatra
- Reviews of String Quartet No.4
- Chamber Music and Tenebrae reviewed in German
- String Quartet No.5 – Brodowski Quartet at Purcell Room
- Quartets 2 -4
- Athene-Minerva CD of Piano music
- Negative reviews of The Flight of Icarus
- Orion and The Borders of Sleep
- Agamemnon’s Tomb
- Contact
Pickard: String Quartets Nos 1 and 5
Brodowski Quartet
(Toccata Classics)
4 out of 5
Reviewed by Andrew Clements
More than two decades separate these two quartets; John Pickard’s Fifth Quartet was first performed in April this year. Unsurprisingly, the works differ sharply in structure and scale. Where the more recent quartet consists of five concise, well-behaved movements lasting 26 minutes altogether, the First is cast in a huge single span almost half as long again, which seems to hold itself together more by sheer creative will than anything else. Though the language is utterly different – Pickard’s writing always retains a firm grip on tonality – the scale and ambition of the music of the First brings Elliott Carter’s First Quartet to mind, especially in the sense of its being a work that had to be written before its composer could move forward. Much of the music is compelling, too, though just occasionally, especially in the pair of fugues at its centre, the material seems a bit academically four-square. I’m less convinced by the Fifth, which seems more conventional in every respect, but the First, superbly played by the Brodowski Quartet, is very well worth investigating.
www.theguardian.com/music/pickard-string-quartets-nos-1-and-5-review