Cuarteto CasalsHarmonia Mundi HMC 902062 *****

György Ligeti’s First String Quartet, written in 1953-54, when the composer still lived in his native Hungary, carries the subtitle

Métamorphoses nocturnes

. The Cuarteto Casals’s new CD embraces it and two other Hungarian quartets under the umbrella of metamorphosis, Bartók’s Fourth (1928) and the 12 Microludes, subtitled

Hommage à András Mihály

, which György Kurtág completed in 1978. Ideas of metamorphosis can be traced on any number of levels, from the influence of Bartók, the different approaches of Bartók and Ligeti to nocturnal atmosphere, and the traces of the past which haunt the Kurtág. Cuarteto Casals persuasively present Bartók more as a frequently throbbing romantic than a modernist or nationalist, early Ligeti as a kind of supercharged Bartók, and Kurtág as a distiller of moments as potent as vividly charged, emotional flashbacks. See url.ie/55ay