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Daryl Runswick: String Quartets 1967 & 2020 (PFCD254)
Compositions by Daryl Runswick performed by the Avir Quartet
1 String Quartet No. 2 [18:56]
2-5 String Quartet in F op. juv. [22.06]
I Allegro energico [07:08] II. Scherzo [02:41] III. Tranquillo [06:58] IV. Allegro molto [04:38]
Total Time [41:02]
About this album
Half a century separates Daryl Runswick’s two ventures into the world of the string quartet. His first effort is a student work, precocious and jazzy and in many ways, for all its tuneful originality, conventional. The second (dedicated to the memories of his wife Alison Truefitt and the poet Philip Pacey who died as this album went into production) sums up a long career pushing formal and stylistic boundaries: so unconventional is it that the parts are interchangeable – it doesn’t matter which instrument plays which. Despite this the new Quartet is as approachable and touching as the first.
Credits
Avir Quartet: Andrew John Liddell, 1st violin | Virág Hévisi, 2nd violin | Ivan Illingworth, viola | Rebecca Burden, cello
Recorded 8th-9th August 2025 at Blackheath Concert Halls, London
Recording engineer Kit Venables
Produced and edited by Daryl Runswick
Sonic enhancement and mastering Phil Hardman
Executive producer Steve Plews
Session photos by Tacettin
Sleeve artwork and design Simon Crosby Buttle
Daryl Runswick
Composer/performer Daryl Runswick (b. 1946) was educated at Cambridge University and Ronnie Scott’s Club. He spent his early career writing and performing jazz and pop; more recently concert pieces. He has also been involved with free improvisation and indeterminate music, one of the few (to quote John Wickes) who can claim to have worked with both Ornette Coleman and John Cage. This duality has permeated his career as an improvising pianist, singer with Electric Phoenix, bassplayer, arranger, record producer, broadcaster, educator, community animateur and film/TV composer. Head of Composition at Trinity College of Music in London for 10 years before retiring, he has searched for a synthesis of the improvising skills of jazz with the more complex structures of concert music.