Arditti Quartet, a trip between Spain and Hungary | Culture
A new visit by the British Arditti Quartet to the Auditorium 400 of the Reina Sofía Museum is always an important meeting. On October 17, 2005, ellos inaugurated this emblematic space for contemporary music. And a year earlier, they dedicated a monograph to Madrid composer Jesús Rueda at the Alicante Festival, with the premiere of his Quartet No. 3. Only a month later, Rueda received the National Music Award in composition. A happy constellation that still resonates.
In this new visit to Madrid, the Arditti retake two of the string quartets of Rueda, the 2nd and the 3rd, framed by two Hungarian creators, the most important after the War and the disappearance of Bartók. György Kurtág and György Ligeti.
The members of the Arditti Quartet entered something cold at String Quartet No. 1 of Kurtág. It is a fragile work, echoes of the most beloved influences of the young Hungarian in his Parisian glare, Webern, Messiaen ... but it is a work with its own values and a hint of sonority that advances the future composer, so you have to play this work with rear view, but with the smooth modulation of the rear Kurtág. That same modulation that they did find in the 12 microlunds of a full Kurtág. Work in which the miniature kurtagiana It is already an expressive reality of a powerful signature.
Already settled in the concert, the British Quartet undertook the two works of Jesus Rueda, who is resident in the season of the National Center for Music Broadcasting (CNDM). They started with the most recent, the Quartet No. 3, Islands, and they continued with the previous one, the No. 2, Subtitled From the shadows. This reversal of order allowed the interpreters to provide a reading that concludes in a calm sea, a slow time of very marked lyric arc. Maybe it's my fixation, but the slow times of both Rueda's quartets have a rare intensity and beauty that counts among the best expressive values of the author from Madrid. The Arditti Quartet, in any case, knows these works well, as it was said before, and they can set an interpretive canon of reference in these quartets.
DATA SHEET
György Kurtág (1926)), String Quartet No. 1, op. one; 12 microlunds for string quartet, op. 13. Jesús Rueda (1961), String Quartet No. 3 "Islands"; String quartet No. 2, "From the shadows". György Ligeti (1923-2006), String Quartet No. 2. Arditti Quartet. Auditorium 400, Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum. Madrid. February 4
The concert with the Quartet No. 2 de Ligeti, a lighthouse work of the second half of the 20th century. Here are many of the procedures that have elevated the author to the top of the cuartetística literature of that period so near and far at the same time: virtuosity in the registers and the aerial sonorities, almost manic control of the kinetic aspects, almost Repetitive mode, but with greater speculative richness and, above all, an expressiveness that catches almost any listener for more than abominate the avant-garde. Arditti rejoiced here, knowing that this work, so touched, is the reference of its performance. And according to the reception, full room, loud applause, the goal has been achieved. His reputation remains intact despite his more than forty active years. Only the coughs seem to dirty this idyll and Irving Arditti lets him know whenever he can.
