Coach House, Dublin Castle

Bagatelles (1913) - Webern Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima (1980)

The Arditti regard themselves as the servants of the music they play and the mesmeric quality of Nono’s Fragmente was due to the loyal dedication they had brought to this work. This threnody to lost causes and lost loves opened up a world of muted sounds that wavered in and out of silence and yet contrived to imply the whole to which the fragments belonged. Owing something to Webern’s Bagatelles which preceded it in the concert, it transcended its origins.

Mishima, by Philip Glass, is yet another maddening glorification of repeat patterns but the composer is a contemporary voice and the Arditti gave it their sympathetic attention. It is for the audience to judge. The quartet, like an advocate, present it in the best possible light.

Ferneyhough’s Adagissimo crams so much into its one and a half minutes that many hearings are called for. Like the Tetras of Xenakis, it makes great use of dynamic contrasts, without the latter’s use of violently “unmusical” sounds. At times Tetras sounds like an aviary of crazed birds, and its violence is extreme. It is a measure of the Arditti’s achievement that they can make such a work, so far removed from conventional ideas of beauty, into an auditory experience whose repetition would be welcome. With the Arditti one rapidly develops a new ear for the new language.