Holmboe's Quartets Nos. 13 and 14 were composed back-to-back in 1975, but are as different as chalk and cheese. No. 13 is in the five-movement structure that he favoured at this time, though its character is rather different to the Tenth or Twelfth (4/99). Right from the opening gentle but severe dissonance, the Quartet moves with complete sureness of touch into a new landscape. Jakob Levinson in his booklet-note comments on its Janus-like aspects: how it is 'at once more rigorous and freer', looking back to earlier symmetries and forward to the different tack taken by No. 14 and its successors.
The appeal of that new direction accounts, presumably, for his carrying on straight afterwards with No. 14, long one of my favourites. Cast in six short movements gathered into groups of three, then two, with the Allegro vivace finale (the longest single movement) separate, it grows inexorably from the severe, almost Bach-like opening solo for the first violin. The movements have something of the character of variations, but are thoroughly integrated. The grave, concentrated No. 15 (1977-78) was available in this country for a time on a Dansk Musik Anthologi LP, in a fine performance by the Copenhagen Quartet (which premiered the work and recorded nearly all of Holmboe's Quartets in the 1970s). Its heart is the Funebre third movement, a searching and dramatic funeral march, motifs from which are taken up in the finale.
The Kontra's performances are excellent. Dacapo's recording is once again clear and opens out slightly more than in Vol. 4. An excellent disc in every way.'