Numerous are the composers whose creativity has been forced to take a back seat, as is typified by the career of Robert Crawford (b1925). Educated in his native Edinburgh and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, his early promise is made clear by the first two string quartets. The First Quartet (1949) is a sizeable work whose four-movement format is by no means orthodox: the variation process that cuts across the sonata-form divisions of the initial Moderato spills over into the volatile and ultimately explosive Adagio, followed by a crepuscular Scherzo and a finale whose fugal unfolding provides for a measure of formal and expressive stability. Considerably shorter, the Second Quartet (1957) develops its predecessor’s contrapuntal ingenuity and its effective use of dissonance – a methodical opening passacaglia releasing its accumulated tension via a quizzical intermezzo then a finale which, despite its Scherzando marking, emerges as a rondo of cumulative and unflagging energy.

Years spent earning a living as a freelance writer and critic and as a producer for the BBC in London meant this was Crawford’s final work for more than three decades. Despite the intervening half-century, the Third Quartet (2008) is demonstrably from the same source – its compact four movements taking in an Allegro that evolves as a continuous sequence of variations on its initial motifs, followed by a tensile Vivace and a refractory Mesto, before a Moderato of the deftest finality. Dedicated performances by the Edinburgh Quartet and extensive notes from Adam Binks enhance a worthwhile release – hopefully, the Fourth Quartet having only recently been completed, with more to follow.