The three works on this disc were written within two years (1964-6), yet are each of radically different character to their fellows. The Seventh String Quartet is perhaps the most straightforward, with a compound-form finale incorporating elements of slow movement, scherzo and coda in its near ten-minute span. Yet no matter how technically ingenious the music the work as a whole radiates the sheer joy of creation directly and immediately but, like all Holmboe’s music, does not surrender all its subtleties at first hearing. The Eighth is the most outward-looking of the three, and probably the most widely known of all Holmboe’s quartets by virtue of the 1970s Turnabout LP (3/70 – nla) of the equally fine performance by the Copenhagen Quartet (who premiered Nos. 7 and 8, and recorded nearly all of the quartets, though only that of No. 8 enjoyed wide currency outside Denmark).
The most profound music on the disc is to be found in No. 9 (revised 1969), a visionary, exploratory work whose expressive world remains compellingly elusive even after repeated hearings. It shares an other-worldly aura with some of Holmboe’s most personal creations of this time, not least the Ninth Symphony and Requiem for Nietzsche. Like that symphony and the Eighth Quartet it is in five movements, arranged in an arch form, though whereas No. 8 starts and ends with quick movements, No. 9 is framed by slow ones. So good are the Kontra Quartet’s interpretations that one actually becomes unaware of them, and dwells only on the music itself, which is unremittingly glorious. Very strongly recommended.'