Anyone who questions the Arditti Quartet’s exalted reputation among new music ensembles should hear this program, recorded live at the Wigmore Hall on April 9, 2005. It opens with Conlon Nancarrow’s 1987 Third Quartet, written especially for the Ardittis. They made a fabulous recording of it for the defunct Gramavision label, but this live version reveals the depths to which the ensemble has absorbed the score’s challenges over the years. The added tonal refinement and delicacy they bring to the all-harmonics second movement is a case in point, as well as their less hectic, more conversational execution of the third movement’s accelerated canonic activity.
On the other hand, the clarity and detail distinguishing both of the ensemble’s studio recordings of Ligeti’s Second Quartet (Wergo and Sony) work more to the music’s advantage. For example, in those performances the subtle rhythmic shifts in the central pizzicato music make a stronger impact, while the minute changes in pitch are easier to ascertain (they’re more percussive and less defined via the Wigmore engineering’s relatively distant perspective). Although several excellent recordings of Dutilleux’s indescribably colorful quartet grace the catalog, the Ardittis’ extraordinary textural control and fluidity must be heard to be believed. To cite one instance, the lyrical unisons that bracket the Litanies 2 section are balanced and shaded to the point where you swear that clarinets, oboes, and accordions are sitting in. No wonder composers love the Arditti Quartet. So will you.
