Sky with the Four Suns: Pärt, Purcell, Britten, Mica Levi, Jasmine Morris, John Luther Adams; Manchester Collective; Crypt up-close, St Martin-in-the-Fields
Reviewed 12 February 2026
Moving from Purcell to a new commission, the Manchester Collective's programme brought out the variety and intensity of writing for just four instruments, centred on Jasmine Morris imaginative new piece and John Luther Adams in spiritual mode.
Manchester Collective's latest tour, Sky with the Four Suns completed with a Crypt up-close evening at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on Thursday 12 February 2026, putting the ensemble in close proximity to a near capacity audience, both seated and promenade, in the crypt space normally reserved for the café.
The ensemble featured a string quartet, Rakhi Singh, Donald Grant, Ruth Gibson, Alice Neary, in a programme that began with Arvo Pärt's Summa and ended with John Luther Adams' Canticles of the Sky, the first movement of which gave the programme its name. In between came music by Purcell, Britten, Mica Levi and a new commission from Jasmine Morris.
We began with Summa, originally Pärt's setting of the Creed which he turned into a string piece. Manchester Collective made it more melodic than some of the composer's work, lyrical phrases interacting and made less austere by warm tone quality, vibrato and phrasing.
Next came Purcell's Fantasia in C minor Z738. Originally written for viols, here we could enjoy the way the string players brought out the dissonances and false relations. It was restless music, never quite settling and seeming always to be reaching for somewhere. Benjamin Britten's second string quartet is linked to Purcell, not just by the composer's admiration for his forbear, but because Britten's work was written for a concert commemorating the 250th anniversary of Purcell's death. We heard the first movement, beginning with light textures and a long breathed melody. The players drew us in and then the music took off, full of vivid character and intense interactions. There was never any doubt this was four players in dialogue, the sense of underlying narrative was palpable. Then suddenly time was suspended as Britten brings the music to a close.
The name Mica Levi might be familiar from their work with bands and music for films, but their name also crops up in Manchester Collective programmes [their 2022 BBC Proms performance featured Levy's Love, see my review]. You Belong to Me was written for the London Contemporary Orchestra and uses material from a 1950s popular song. In three short movements, Levi's writing is flexible, giving a long of scope for decisions by the performers.
The opening, featuring string trills, flirted with folk-like heterophony before setting up rhythmic structures against which the low cello line was placed, exploring timbres and textures. The second movement featured a repeated sequence of strong bow strokes, again creating rhythmic sequences contrasting with more aetherial episodes. The folk influence returned in the last movement with string flourishes against a cello drone, again flirting with heterophony. I have to confess to reading the programme note after hearing Levy's piece, and when listening was entirely unaware of the use of the 1950s song.
Jasmine Morris is a British composer based in upstate New York. Trained at the Royal College of Music, she is currently studying for a D.M.A. in Composition at Cornell University. Her compositional approach integrates field recordings and sampling of sounds. Poems of Consciousness was written for Manchester Collective. The three movements were each inspired by written words. In them, she explores how text can form the basis for melodies.
The first movement, Half in a dream, half in the snow was light in texture, harmonics contributing to the distinctive timbres. Unlike Mica Levi's piece, Morris writes with great specificity, utilising a number of advanced string techniques. Phrases wove in and out of each other, textures staying aetherial and transparent. The Decay of the Angel featured short phrases being thrown about in an almost skittish manner, very much like a conversation at speed. Fingerprints on the Dragonfly, in Amber was more sustained, reaching great intensity. Rather frustratingly, Morris's illuminating programme note [on the Manchester Collective website] fails to illuminate the rather intriguing movement titles, but perhaps that is the idea.
Before he devoted himself to composition, John Luther Adams was an environmental activist working in Alaska. His 2015 work, Canticle of the Sky take as its inspiration his experience of natural phenomena in Alaska. Each of the four movements began from nothing, sometimes just the cello, sometimes just a violin. Then each movement grew to a climax before dying down to nothing again. Each arch the same yet different. Utilising a lot of sustained material, Adams made small details count, single chances of notes within static harmonies.
Sky with Four Suns built to something rich and vibrant with much use of open intervals. Sky with Four Moons had more movement, becoming strong and vibrant. Sky with Nameless Colours utilised undulations of pitch to disturb the stasis, reaching real radiance at the climax. Sky with Endless Stars featrued constant movement yet the overall texture remained seemingly unchanged,a sort of shimmering which became intense.
The work's contemplative sense and the way Adams created almost visible effects from very small changes made the music almost a spiritual experience. Once that, I have to admit, I admired rather then being moved by.
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Elsewhere on this blog
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- Ethel Smyth's String Trio on Solaire records: Trio d'Iroise draw our focus onto this neglected piece - record review
- Anonymous no more: 16th century works from a choirbook created in Arundel & now residing in Lambeth, given voice for the first time - review
- The Strijkkwartet Biënnale Amsterdam: punching well above its weight to the delight of its admiring international audience - review
- Letter from Florida: Verdi reminds us to grieve for and remember soldiers everywhere. Messa da Requiem from Cleveland Orchestra - concert review
- Immense sympathy for overlooked work: Elgar's The Kingdom from David Temple, Crouch End Festival Chorus & Hertfordshire Chorus - concert review
- In sparkling form: Kate Lindsey joins The English Concert for an evening exploring Handel in Italy ending with something of a rarity - concert review
- Reviving the Queen of Sheba: American Romantics record a suite from Goldmark's once-popular first opera - record review
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