The Cage of Opprobrium, Op. 22 (2014)
The Girl from Marseille, Op. 17 (2010)
The Aftermath of Longing, Op. 36 (2021)
Night After Night, Op. 27 (2017)

All world premiere recodings.

Even within the concise structural elements and the confined instrumental color palettes afforded the string quartet, composer Steve Elcock (b. 1957) still manages to evoke strong and vivid imagery within his chamber music, evidenced by their descriptive and programmatic titles, as if diminutive tone poems. I've always maintained that it's easy for a composer to hide shortcomings within the sonic splendors of a full orchestral score. And not so easy to hide a lack of musical proficiency and/or imagination when dealing with only four instrumental voices. The fact that Steve Elcock is a self-taught composer raises his musical command and fluency to a whole new level.

Here are some highlights from the booklet notes which may shed some light on how or from where Steve Elcock obtains his inspiration. "While exploring the Slovak town of Levoca, I came upon a sixteenth-century metal pillory in the form of an iron cage, described in the tourist brochure as 'the cage of opprobrium'. Among the people it was used to punish were women whose only crime was to have been found walking unaccompanied in the streets after dark. They were usually locked in the cage for 24 hours and were no doubt made to suffer humiliation from the local populace." It certainly conjures up dark imagery throughout, and its Allegro movement in particular brings to mind the terror and brutality found within Shostakovich's war symphonies. "The title of the Op. 27 quartet comes from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. The third and final verse begins 'Night after night in my sorrow' and it is this phrase which provides the key to the atmosphere of the piece, especially the fourth section. The whole is intended to depict the lonely journey through the night of the chronic insomniac, a prey to fears, longing, loneliness and regret." The incessant forward momentum of its final movement grows, like a nightmare, to a feverish pitch, "whereupon it simply stops, with the insomniac, who has managed to get to sleep after all, jolted awake by the surprise ending."

Despite Steve Elcock's subject matter seemingly "off-the-wall" nature, this composer never resorts to arbitrary effects or undue "modernistic" tactics to convey his ideas. Instead, and something that is unusually rare for an autodidact composer, everything is worked out within the boundaries of a strict tonal language and logical developmental structure. The highly versatile Tippett Quartet well capture and project the dramatic nature of Elcock's music. Imagine that; a 21st century composer with a 20th century mindset who still has enough respect for music to actually write music.