Of All Joys

Following Real Life, Attacca Quartet’s genre-busting 2021 album, Of All Joys is a powerful musical journey that folds late 20th-century minimalism back onto the music of the Renaissance. Music by John Bennet, Gibbons, Clemens non Papa, Marenzio, and Allegri is juxtaposed with works by Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass (his String Quartet No. 3 “Mishima”), and some wonderful resonances are struck. The move from the Glass to a string version of Allegri’s “Miserere” is a stroke of genius and, like the entire album, both thought-provoking and deeply rewarding. Dowland’s “Flow My Tears,” music of deep introspection, might be an anthem for our times.