This collection featuring international stars is a splendid survey of some of British composer Anna Clyne’s finest string writing over the past two decades, most of it created in the US where she lives.

The Knights, a collective of musicians founded by Brooklyn Rider’s Jacobsen brothers Colin and Eric, commissioned the opening track, Shorthand. Written during the pandemic, it is both a solo cello work and a string quartet and is played here by Yo-Yo Ma. Clyne, herself a cellist, references Beethoven’s Kreuzer Sonata and Tolstoy’s novella of the same name – as well as Janáček’s First String Quartet – and goes from yearning to passionate in a rollercoaster ride worthy of Tolstoy’s comment that music is “the shorthand of emotion”. 

Three Sisters, written for Avi Avital in 2017, was inspired by rooftop views of Orion at night from her Brooklyn apartment. It is a substantial and attractively diverse concerto that allows the brilliant mandolinist to exploit all the virtuosic aspects of his instrument.

The 2012...