Graham Rickson reviews our Cindy Cox: Patagón recording in The Arts Desk:
“Cindy Cox’s Columba aspexit is based around a chart by Hildegard von Bingen. … What Cox does with her material is fascinating; the use of canons giving the piece a very distinctive character, both archaic and fiercely contemporary. … The quartet writing is always assured; the harmonies lucid, the textures always clear and uncluttered. Cox’s Patagón was composed after a 2011 sabbatical in South America, the five movements vividly pictorial and musically substantial. … Magical stuff; contemporary music that is as appealing as it is intelligent. The disc opens with Cox’s solo violin tribute to the memory of a young composer colleague, played with rare sympathy by the Alexander Quartet’s principal violinist Zakarias Grafilo. They are a superb bunch; their Shostakovich and Bartók cycles are up there with the best, and this excursion into contemporary repertoire (Patagón was written for them) is every bit as good.” —Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk
“Cindy Cox’s Columba aspexit is based around a chart by Hildegard von Bingen. … What Cox does with her material is fascinating; the use of canons giving the piece a very distinctive character, both archaic and fiercely contemporary. … The quartet writing is always assured; the harmonies lucid, the textures always clear and uncluttered. Cox’s Patagón was composed after a 2011 sabbatical in South America, the five movements vividly pictorial and musically substantial. … Magical stuff; contemporary music that is as appealing as it is intelligent. The disc opens with Cox’s solo violin tribute to the memory of a young composer colleague, played with rare sympathy by the Alexander Quartet’s principal violinist Zakarias Grafilo. They are a superb bunch; their Shostakovich and Bartók cycles are up there with the best, and this excursion into contemporary repertoire (Patagón was written for them) is every bit as good.” —Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk