This CD was made possible by the belief and generosity of our supporters in both the UK and New Zealand and we hope you get as much enjoyment from listening to it as we did recording it.

Our first CD for Atoll, featuring the music of New Zealand composer Keith Statham, spent six weeks at No.1 in the Radio New Zealand Classical Chart.

For this, our second disc, we have chosen to record repertoire that formed the backbone of our two most recent tours, Ravel’s impressionist masterpiece and Tchaikovsky’s first quartet with the famous Andante cantabile second movement. For the final piece on the disc we owe thanks to our former NZSO colleague, Allan Chisholm, for introducing us to it. This beautiful Romance is the slow movement from the first incomplete string quartet by Rachmaninov, written when he was just 16 years of age.

The Puertas Quartet was formed in 2009. The two married couples met in London but now live almost 12,000 miles apart. Despite this, their passion and love for chamber music continues to bring them back together for intense periods of music making. Since its formation, the quartet has played several highly acclaimed tours of New Zealand and the UK and was successful in the 2010 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition.

As Principal players in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra, they have worked with some of the greatest musicians in the world.

Puertas Quartet:
- Ellie Fagg, violin
- Tom Norris, violin
- Julia Joyce, viola
- Andrew Joyce, cello