JUDITH BAILEY (b.1941): String Quartet, Op. 31, Clarinet Quintet, Op. 47, The Towers of San Gimignano for Piano, Op. 51, The Egloshayle Nightingale Trio for String Trio, Op. 59, Aquamarine Waltz for Cello and PIano, Op. 65, Microminatures Nos. 1, Op. 68 and No. 2, Op. 70 for String Trio, Visions of Hildegard for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano, Op. 72, Light for Piano Trio, Op. 76.

Description: Bailey's idiom is readily accessible and thoroughly tonal. The lively and attractive clarinet quintet (for the composer's own instrument) is typical of the easy-going Englishness of many of the pieces here, with slow movements of subtle, pastoral melancholy. The trio evokes the countryside of the composer's native Cornwall, the south-western peninsula of the British Isles, in its gentler aspects. The string quartet, written after the death of the composer's mother, and Light, after that of her companion (whom it memorializes) bring out a darker strain of expression than elsewhere, hinting here and there at an anguished, Shostakovich-like mood. The Davey Chamber Ensemble.