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Arnold Cooke: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 2 on CD

The music of the Yorkshire-born Arnold Cooke (1906-2005) - inventively contrapuntal, lyrical and energetic in turns - does not deserve the neglect it suffered even in it's composer's lifetime. This second album of two presenting all five of Cooke's string quartets underlines his reputation for resourceful craftsmanship, presented in a style which sits downstream from Hindemith, with whom he studied in Berlin, and from Bartok. There is also a surprisingly strong dance element in all three works heard here, though tempered, even in their lighter moments, by something of the emotional reticence of Britten's quartets.