Virtuosi and yet another new simplicity

Here's a concert-on-demand broadcast by the Quatour Bozzini, an ensemble to which attention ought be paid. The program is packaged as "new simplicity" by the CBC, which is okay, so long as a definite article isn't attached to the label ('cause then we'd have to argue all about all those past instances of The New Simplicity). There is music by my friends Markus Trunk and Tom Johnson, as well as Chris Newman and Matteo Fargion.

Actually, come to think of it, the names Johnson and Newman ought to immediately send up lots of warning signals about a simplicity label. Johnson's methodical rigor and clarity of means often arrives at a surface that is far from simple, and Newman's has always been a music about which I have no idea what to think, but I do know that simple is not the right word, as however raw, naive, mundane, or simplistic as the surface may appear, the net effect of listening to Newman's music is all-too-frequently a (welcome) challenge to everyday sensibility.