Embers: Haunting, unsettling evocations of the past Genre: Classical Louth Contemporary Music Society’s latest well-played album is a kind of musical sandwich, with works by Irish composer Raymond Deane enclosing a much longer work by Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov. Deane is now in his late 60s, Silvestrov in his mid 80s, and the works range in date from 1973 (Deane’s Embers) to 2011 (Silvestrov’s Third Quartet, dedicated to and premièred by the Kronos Quartet). But they have rather more in common than you might expect. They are all pieces unafraid of stillness, of dwelling in the moment through complex evocations of the past, yet also ready to shift gear in unexpected ways.