Ben Hartley Notebooks [2023]

4 mins, string quartet • two miniatures for string quartet

String Quartet No. 5 Borderlands

12 mins, string quartet

Tide purl [2013] 

4 mins, string quartet • The play of light on water at dusk at Druidstone Beach - with a beautiful new film by Blue Efrath

‘a 4-minute jewel of a quartet’ —Tonality Systems

Forty-Something [2010] 

5 mins, string quartet • A quirky musical puzzle playing around with the ‘Happy Birthday’ tune.

String Quartet No. 4 Sky-burial [2005] 

28 mins, voice and string quartet • Kathleen Jamie’s extended narrative poem tracking the journey of a woman carried through her dying and her death… ‘beautifully crafted to amplify and illuminate the imaginative breadth of Jamie’s text.’ Tonality Systems review

String Quartet No. 3 
Intricate Web [2003]

11 mins, string quartet • An eerie exploration of a spider’s web …and the inevitability of death.

String Quartet No. 2
For Elliott Part 1 [2000]

string quartet • Moving between darker and lighter moods with the challenges facing a 1 year old child (dedicated to my godson, Elliott).

String Quartet No. 2
For Elliott Part 2 [2000]  

1 min 56 seconds, string quartet • Playing grasshoppers (dedicated to my godson, Elliott).

Images of Trees Part 1
(String Quartet No. 1)
Clefts and fissures of bark [1998]

4 mins 54 seconds, string quartet • Exploring a photograph I took in my local park revealing the forms and structure of bark. 

Images of Trees Part 2
(String Quartet No. 1) [1998]

4 mins 3 seconds, string quartet • Winter branches • The rotations of winter branches in stormy winds, followed by a delicate descent of icy raindrops, maybe?

Images of Trees Part 3
(String Quartet No. 1) [1998]

4 mins 59 seconds, string quartet • The symmetry of a single leaf – strange beauty.