The Carducci Quartet’s impressive debut recording on Naxos featured the first four of Philip Glass’s string quartets (9/10). This release includes the composer’s only other remaining quartet, completed in 1991, plus a suite from his 1998 soundtrack to Tod Browning’s film Dracula (1931) and an arrangement for string sextet of the Third Symphony by Glass’s longtime musical director and collaborator, Michael Riesman.

Glass has stated that his intention in the Fifth Quartet was to free the work from the burden of the medium’s tradition by placing musicality rather than seriousness at its centre. He throws off the shackles of minimalism here, too. The opening theme’s effusive lyrical tone may come as a surprise to some. The Fifth Quartet’s clear formal outline and sense of organic growth also make it Glass’s most ‘classical’ (and arguably finest) quartet. Most impressive is the way in which the quartet manage to project its overall shape, imparting unity and coherence to the whole, and tying together the loose ends of the previous four movements in a very effective closing section.

As might be expected from a score to a Dracula film, the overall mood is darker and more sinister in the Suite. The Carducci’s performance is imbued with a grainy, almost greyscale patina. In ‘Excellent Mr Renfield’ and ‘Women in White’, moments of eerie anticipation are punctuated by dramatic outbursts. The quartet is joined by Cian O’Dúill (viola) and Gemma Rosefield (cello) for the string sextet arrangement of Glass’s Symphony No 3. Written originally for a 19-piece string orchestra, the Third lends itself well to a chamber setting. There are a few moments when the lines split to one-to-a-part, but what is lost in weight and depth is more than made up in clarity, focus and forward momentum.