While the string quartet is most usually associated with the Germanic traditions, many fine quartets have emanated from a variety of sources in more recent times, and the Catalan area is such. The four quartets recorded here are important because they offer a picture of quartet writing outside the main European canon; the four composers are of the generation after the great Roberto Gerhard, who left Spain for Britain in 1939 but whose roots in Catalan music created the cornerstone for this new school of expression.