Day 323
Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit for String Quartet
Belcea Quartet
Although I knew the name I don’t think that I have heard anything by Dutilleux before. This piece is a work for string quartet dating from 1976/77. The title translates as thus the night. It is in seven movement separated by four brief interludes. The whole work lasts no longer than 20 mins or so. Judging by the number of recording of the piece it had become a classic of the modern string quartet repertory. I didn’t have a score so couldn’t study the music in detail but on a purely aural basis it made quite an impression. The style is partly post-Webern but is less fragmented that much of the music of the 1970s. It would be wrong to call it lyrical but it certainly has a shape to it and the textures are constantly interesting without being aggressively extreme. All in all this was a good piece to have discovered and I will certainly put the composer down as somebody whose music I should get to know better.
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