Okay, so it’s not “easy listening”. These four quartets actually cover a very wide expressive range. The brief (nine minutes) First Quartet actually is the toughest nut, being the most heavily indebted to the Second Viennese School in its relentlessly busy textures and in its avoidance of anything like traditional melody. But the Fourth Quartet, in three movements, is another matter altogether. Here the modern school rubs shoulders with the likes of Bartók and, of all people, Janácek. Its second movement not only shares the Czech composer’s favorite tempo designation (“con moto”), but it uses those same propulsive ostinatos in support of surprisingly passionate emotional outbursts.
So while the idiom obviously is more difficult than Janácek’s, and there isn’t a shred of folk influence, there’s more than enough that will be familiar to most quartet fanciers to let them follow the music’s course. This, combined with a return to occasional melody and consonant harmony, makes for very compelling listening.
The Fifth and Eighth Quartets follow much the same course, with varying degrees of purely textural sound effects thrown in as well. I have to confess that based on the First Quartet alone I rather dreaded the prospect of hearing the other three, but this initial impression turned out to be mistaken. In any case, the performances are stunning. The Doelenkwartet plays with dead-accurate intonation, fine ensemble balance, and real beauty of tone, even when the music seems not to care. Cybele’s sonics in all formats are state-of-the art. This was, if not exactly a “pleasant” surprise, a very impressive and powerful one. [5/31/2007]
