Four Dances / Nightshade / etc

"From the flittering opening of Four Dances to the unresolved menace that closes Abysm, the performances, marshalled by Knussen, bristle with controlled energy and colour. The music both beguiles and unsettles, revealing a stunning mastery of chamber forces from a composer associated with a larger canvas."
(BBC Music Award Finalist 2011 - Chamber)

"There are few more fluent and adept composers at work these days than the Dane Poul Ruders... Four Dances in One Movement is a perfect example of his bright, biting and impulsive art, a play of brilliant skill, but never merely clever."
(Sunday Times)

"This is a bracing, sensuous ear-opener...Ruders has always had a gift for texture and colour, a prerequisite for any composer, but he's a grand master...Oliver Knussen and his players are expert interpreters."
(The Observer)

On this disc three of Ruders's pivotal chamber works are in the hands of one of Europe's leading new music ensembles Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

Four Dances in One Movement (1983) is an emotional sequence of four pure musical characters. Abysm (2000), which Ruders has written for BCMG, and Nightshade (1987) are two modern tone poems rooted in both dark and moving sound worlds.

BIRMINGHAM CONTEMPORARY MUSIC GROUP (BCMG) was formed in 1987 by musicians from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle, the Group's Founding Patron. BCMG is one of Europe's leading ensembles and has won many awards for its work in attracting new audiences for contemporary music.

OLIVER KNUSSEN is one of the most respected figures in British contemporary music. He is in international demand as an illuminating interpretation of twentieth century music, and he appears regularly with the major orchestras of the world. He was made a CBE in 1994 and is Conductor Laureate of the London Sinfonietta.