Arditti 4

BIS presents its first disc of works by this fascinating contemporary Icelandic composer. One of the label’s most innovative projects ever undertaken, the disc uniquely offers a variety of works composed specifically for the CD medium. Ingolfsson was closely involved in the making of this CD, through both the recording session and editing stages, and the decisions that he made throughout this process have undoubtedly shaped the end result we have here.

Arnold Schoenberg - Chamber Music - Arditti String Quartet (1995) {2CD Set, Auvidis–Montaigne MO782025}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 583 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 317 Mb
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© 1995 Auvidis / Montaigne | MO 782025
Classical / Modern Classical / Avant-Garde / Chamber Music

Arnold Schoenberg exercised very considerable influence over the course of music in the 20th century. This was particularly through his development and promulgation of compositional theories in which unity in a work is provided by the use of a determined series, usually consisting of the 12 possible different semitones, their order also inverted or taken in retrograde form and in transposed versions.

The English composer, Benedict Mason, has been called "one of the major talents in music today" by the critic Julian Anderson. The three works recorded on this disc introduce the work of a startlingly original voice. Mason's music incorporates a huge range of expression- from commonplace to the sublime. Barriers between tonality and non-tonality are swept aside easily by the force of Mason's musical argument, his broadly inclusive vision calling to mind such visionaries as Janacek, Mahler and Ives. Indeed, ghosts of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ives and even Elgar occasionally haunt the discourse of Mason's surreal landscape, projecting a brilliantly refractory sub-text, the music's surface always alive with humor and highly detailed invention.

Unlike many more formally-inclined composers, Ferneyhough often speaks of his music as being about creating energy and excitement rather than embodying an abstract schema. His pieces rarely use 12-note rows, but do include microtones and frequent use of glissando.
His scores make huge technical demands on performers; sometimes creating parts that are so detailed they are likely impossible to realize completely.

This is a fine collection of moving, muscular performances by this seminal postwar composer. Surely the best known of the works on this disc is the Second String Quartet, one of the masterpieces of 20th-century music–although you might not know it's a masterpiece until the heartbreaking last movement. But the First String Quartet, written before Ligeti emigrated from Hungary to the West, is fascinating: it shows Ligeti working through the influence of Bartók, particularly Bartók's Third and Fourth Quartets–music Ligeti knew only silently, from the score, since performances of Bartók's music were banned by the Hungarian communist regime.