The Arditti Quartet has set extraordinary standards for making shape and sense out of the thorniest contemporary string quartets. It continues to do so with a disc showcasing five prominent names in Portugal’s new-music scene. João Pedro Oliveira’s Peregrinaçanao focuses on color and texture, with plenty of eerie harmonics and petulant Penderecki-like glissandos in all directions. An eclectic post-modern vocabulary, plus sections that utilize a steady, easy-to-grasp pulse characterize a single-movement quartet by Alexandre Delgado.
The gorgeously tinted trilled chords at the beginning of the second movement of Luis Tinoco’s Quartet are worth the entire work, as are the stark, modal unison melodies dominating Eugénio Manuel Rodrigues’ Mata Hari. To my ears, the most personal, expressive, and original composer of these five is Antonio Pinho-Vargas (he’s also a fabulous pianist, by the way). Aside from a few anguished outbursts, Vargas’ 15-minute Monodia largely consists of sparse, delicate, painstakingly spaced, hauntingly sustained gestures. In all, this excellently recorded and annotated release will attract adventurous string quartet mavens and Arditti fans.
