Score 0-571-50704-2 and parts 0-571-50692-5 on sale

My Oboe Quartet No.1 was written early in 1981 to a centenary year commission from the University of Nottingham. The work, which lasts about 10 minutes, is in fifteen short sections (all linked by related tempi) in which all four instruments alternate with the four different combinations that can make up a trio. This framework is separate from the musical argument, in which variations on the three ideas set out in the opening section evolve continuously. The music attempts to be both capricious and lyrical, though not necessarily both at the same time.

Colin Matthews

'The sharp, finely detailed reactions of the oboe and the three strings were as subtle as the music itself in its ingenious meshing of a skilfully plotted textural variety and a naturally self-generating sense of creative continuity.'
The Daily Telegraph (​Robert Henderson), 18 April 1984