PETER FRIBBINS

Renowned for his distinctive, passionate and direct musical style, this exciting new album of music by Peter Fribbins follows the critically acclaimed ‘I Have the Serpent Brought’, first-class readings of Fribbins’s chamber music for strings which opened with the highly dramatic 1st String Quartet, released in 2010. The new album opens with the equally striking 2nd Quartet, in a recording by the celebrated Chilingirian String Quartet. This leads, via a piano prelude on themes by Haydn, to the central work on the album, Fribbins’s Piano Concerto, a significant new addition to the British concerto repertoire, performed by talented German pianist Diana Brekalo with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Lithuanian conductor Robertas Šervenikas. Distinguished viola and piano duo Sarah-Jane Bradley and Anthony Hewitt complete the album with Fribbins’s beguiling ‘Fantasias’ on Welsh and Hungarian folk songs. This recording offers a hugely enjoyable variety of works and takes its title from the indomitable lines of Omar Khayyám, which Fribbins uses to preface his powerful new Piano Concerto: The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.