Press

‘The first half of the concert ended with the first performance of Robert Peate’s String Quartet, ‘Grasses’, jointly commissioned by the 2026 Presteigne Festival and the 2026 Romsey Chamber Music Festival, and played by Emma Roijackers, Laura Rickard, Anuschka Cidlinsky and Rainer Crosett. In a pre-concert interview with Laura, Peate explained that the initial inspiration for the quartet came from seeing a selection of Charles MacCarthy’s ‘Grasses’: as he has written, ‘I felt immediately drawn in by the intimate worlds these paintings captured, revealing the secluded beauty of a grassy margin, the corner of a field, or a slice of landscape, as well as by their warmth and variety of colour and texture.’ His compositional method balances a ‘zooming in’ on tiny detail with a ‘zooming out’ to ‘a more open-aired, modal radiance’.

It is indeed a radiant and beautiful work: sounds overlapping, music burgeoning over descending scales, moments of ecstatic euphony, a vigorous folk dance; the music slow, spare, hypnotic to a quiet, rapt close. There were tiny hints of Britten, Tippett, even the luminous plain speaking of Janáček: these are not ‘influences’ but perhaps clues to the emotional and imaginative terrain Peate’s music inhabits. I was transported for the quartet’s 12 minutes: I have heard nothing finer in the Festival. I certainly hope to hear it again.’

Chris Kettle, Seen and Heard International (review of String Quartet in E ‘Grasses’ – premiere)

 

‘Of the evening’s first half, it was left to Robert Peate’s String Quartet to provide the strongest imprint, its creative impulse derived from a series of atmospheric paintings by Charles MacCarthy (b.1950). A work of meticulous craftmanship and accumulating interest, its single movement span, designed to resemble a sonata form structure, was given an ideal first outing by Emma Roijackers, Laura Rickard (violins), Anuschka Cidlinsky (viola) and Rainer Crosett (cello) who collectively outlined its gossamer sonorities and warmly expressive harmonic soundscape that brought distinct echoes of Britten, Tippett and Janáček.’

David Truslove, Classical Source (review of String Quartet in E ‘Grasses’ – premiere)

 

‘…At just over an hour’s duration, Two Souls is a sizeable statement, yet such is its fluency and integrity that the overall impression is one of distillation and economy of gesture. […] the colours and textures seemed to evolve naturally out of the unusual performing forces required […] the music conjured up a valid and highly individual sound-world, which unfolded with a powerful sense of inevitability. Not quite a full-blown oratorio, nor yet a bona fide cantata, Two Souls stands apart, sui genesis, as a dramatic and directly communicative religious work of substance and resonance.’

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion Quarterly (review of Two Souls – read full review here)

 

‘…a fascinating exposé (for four harps, organ, pair of narrators and chamber choir) of the lives of two fourth-century figures […] it is hugely unusual and intriguing, mapping out its highly affecting, intermingled duple story.’

Roderic Dunnett, Church Times (review of Two Souls)

 

‘…Violin Concerto is of course a time-honoured title. Short this example may be, but there is an epic feel to born-1987 Robert Peate’s writing, which is incident-packed, capricious and emotional, with essentials, including a cadenza, compacted, the music becoming serene and finally vanishing. Vesselin Gellev was the splendid soloist…’

Colin Anderson, Classical Source (Review of Violin Concerto)

 

‘…Robert Peate’s mini song-cycle of Edward Thomas settings rounded off proceedings in fine style. Will You Come? was initially spirited and joyful, its intermittent hesitations and decelerations mirroring the text’s increasingly agonised permutations of the title, e.g. ‘would you come’, ‘would you have come’, ‘if you come’, etc. The central Interval was a hushed and introspective nocturne, affectingly wistful in this focused premiere performance. The cycle concluded with an ardent treatment of The Lofty Sky, which included three slower, more reflective sections, remote and detached, featuring a speaking soloist over sustained choral chords. The closing pages seemed to be heading for a measured ending, but the final flourish was an uplifting reminder of the bold,
ascending scalic figure in the opening bars. Thoughtfully contrasting, yet pleasingly complementary, Robert Peate’s three Edward Thomas settings made a substantial closing item to an inspiring, impressively performed programme.’

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion Quarterly

 

‘..two pieces by Robert Peate, Tyto Alba (2022), a haunting, solemn paean to
the barn owl for solo alto flute and Suite for harp (2012, rev. 2025), a harmonic exploration of the instrument in five short movements that contrasted remote and spacious music with fiery, bravura material. Sophisticated and subtly effective, the deeply felt music-making from all three musicians will linger long in the memory.

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion Quarterly (Review of a performance by The Erda Ensemble)

 

‘Robert Peate’s haunting three-movement Knucklas Arches was […] veiled, expansive and imposing […] introspective and songlike. Peate’s delicate and painterly paragraphs were sensitively realised in this cogent and satisfying first performance.’

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion Quarterly

 

‘Robert Peate’s ear-tingling Images, work […] from a RAM student who’s already writing genuine music.’

Geoff Brown, The Times

 

‘Robert Peate impressed with his technical command and some weird but effective textures, as well as some genuinely lyrical music’

Christopher Gunning, Seen and Heard International (Review of Images – part 1)

 

‘Robert Peate’s Pearl was an elegiac piece about loss and mourning which embraces reflection and anger. It was moving and transient.’

Edward Clark, Feature Review: 2013 Presteigne Festival of Music and Arts

 

“Full of telling echoes and resonances […] The contrast between the still, numbed opening paragraphs and the ensuing ornate passages is highly effective and the work’s underlying theme, which is loss and grief, seeps through gaps and reverberations in the material.”

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion (Review of Pearl (II))