As I write this review David Matthews has probably already finished his String Quartet No 18! Only the Seventh (with tenor soloist) and Ninth then remain to be recorded as part of this cycle from ever enterprising Toccata Classics. Vol 6, meanwhile, brings us up to date with Quartets Nos 16 and 17 together with the Eighth. Matthews is a youthful figure who nevertheless marked his 80th birthday in March last year – and even if ‘80 is the new 60’, his continued fecundity is a source of both wonder and joy. Last year saw the warmly received concert premiere of his first opera Anna (libretto by the late Roger Scruton) at The Grange, while we now await the premieres of Symphony No 11 and the Symphonic Diptych from the opera. It can be hard for record companies to keep up with this prodigious rate of creativity, which is why Toccata’s continuing quartet series is to be welcomed with open arms.

Quartet No 8 (1997 98) has a first movement haunted by the Welsh folk song ‘Y Deryn Du’ (‘The Blackbird’) and is eloquent in drawing its contours and content from this rich source. Energy erupts in a scherzo while elegy then emerges in a slow finale inscribed to the memory of German polymath and colleague Berthold Goldschmidt. Quartet No 16 (premiered in 2022) was triggered by the death of fellow composer Hugh Wood in 2021 and towards its end contains a sharply memorable moment transcribing the song of a robin. No 17 was unveiled at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival by the Kreutzer Quartet and is thus very suitably a many-layered homage to Benjamin Britten, with whom Matthews worked closely as a compositional assistant for four years at the end of the ailing composer’s life.

Matthews has a remarkable consistency of utterance which still makes every new quartet an engrossing journey of discovery in exploring unexpected corners of his imagination. These performances by the committed Kreutzer players led by Peter Sheppard Skærved are guided by the composer himself in fantastically vivid sound and they respond empathetically and enthusiastically to every gesture of this multifaceted music. A moving transcription of the final Prelude and Fugue from Vol 1 of Bach’s ‘48’ is included for good measure. An essential and authentic document therefore – by a musical master who should be much more widely celebrated for what he brings to today’s fractured cultural landscape.