The British composers Martin Butler (b. 1960) and Philip Cashian (b. 1963) both demonstrate the sort of directness and fluency that suggest affinity with Britten, and such later, 'new' romantics as Nicholas Maw and Oliver Knussen. Neither is in the least superficial. Butler's Songs and Dances have a distinctive warmth of expression, while Cashian, in more contrapuntal vein, shapes his flow of ideas into lively rhythmic structures. His hints of diffuseness betray a certain lack of formal control alongside Butler's polished version of an arch design, but the feeling for harmonic relationships in both quartets is positive and convincing.
David Nicholls (b. 1955) is slightly older than Butler and Cashian, and his music displays a closer involvement with modernist traditions. There is more of an impulse to argue, a quest for a more symphonic mode of structuring, and an earnestness—with nothing dull about it—not utterly remote from the concerns of the Second Viennese School. Nicholls plans on a large scale, and his reference to a Breugel painting in his subtitle sets the scene for an ambitious exploration of remoteness and alienation—what Nicholls himself defines as an evasiveness of language, that could have created multiple frustrations for listeners unsure of what is being evaded. In practice, however, the music's consistent restraint and lack of flamboyance give it ample expressive conviction, suggesting that what is being shunned is anything extreme, whether avant-garde complexity or neo-romantic eclecticism. Nicholls makes worthwhile music from the middleground between such extremes, and his work forms a satisfyingly conclusion to a valuable disc. The Bingham Quartet enhance their reputation as one of the best of the younger groups around, and the recordings are admirable in their naturalness and clarity.'