Revered since the height of the Classical era up to the simmering years of the 20th century, the string quartet represented an ideal genre to which composers entrusted their most innovative ideas. The Modigliani Quartet illuminates these brillant masterpieces, each bearing witness to a turning point in the lives of their authors. Brimming with poetry, audacity and a thirst for life, the singular narratives of these quartets herald the advent of new horizons. © Mirare

Haydn's piano trios aren't terribly often played in comparison with his instrumental works in other genres, and the general line on them has been that they are simple Hausmusik with violin and cello lines that may be omitted if desired. The Gaspard Trio, which has embarked on a complete cycle of Haydn's trios (this is the second installment), strenuously disputes this idea, and the group's playing seems designed to bring out the independence of the stringed instruments where it occurs. Perhaps the best way to look at the question is that Haydn is the true creator of the keyboard trio, and his output in the genre offers a fascinating look into his mind as he realized its possibilities. Rather than plow through the trios chronologically, the Gaspard Trio, playing modern instruments, chooses to make each volume in the series an independent release, containing music from various phases of Haydn's career, and here the group lands on three works from the mid-1790s. In these works, which Beethoven certainly would have known, the trio is indeed made up of three equal instruments, and the Piano Trio in E flat major, Hob. 15/29, is one of those Haydn works that seem to look forward to Romanticism. The Gaspard Trio gives it a warm, relaxed performance that's quite appealing, and in general, the group's Haydn is sympathetic and alert to little turns of humor or unexpected formal detail, although they apply improvised, non-notated ornaments that will be to the taste of some listeners but not others. Despite the Gaspard's belief in the importance of these works, the group does not try to put them on the plane of Haydn's quartets, which is all to the good; there is a lightness in the performances that is just right. The early Piano Trio in G major, Hob. 15/41, only occasionally assigns primary material to the violin; by the middle-period Piano Trio in B flat major, Hob. 15/8, Haydn was experimenting all over the place with the emancipation of the violin and cello. Another intriguing feature of the Gaspard Trio's series is that each volume has (and apparently will have) a newly commissioned work that comments on Haydn in some way; the one here, by the cellist-composer, Leonid Gorokhov, is intriguing. There is plenty here to make listeners look forward to what is going to be a substantial series; Haydn composed 45 piano trios. © James Manheim /TiVo

Fresh from their latest accolade as winners of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, the critically lauded Dudok Quartet Amsterdam embarks on a new project dedicated to Franz Joseph Haydn’s six Op. 20 String Quartets. This first installment of two volumes sees the quartet explore the C major, G minor and F minor quartets. With some of the most celebrated works from the quartet repertoire, the Dudok Quartet relish delving into the monumental and dramatic gestures within Haydn’s highly developed rhetorical style. © Resonus

When it comes to French string quartets, Autumn 2021 has been notably nocturnal-flavoured. First there was the superb “round midnight” from the genre’s rockstars, Quatuor Ébène – a programme of music for after dark that paired Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit of 1976 with a quartet arrangement of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (1899), bridged by a new jazz-infused work by the quartet’s cellist-composer Raphaël Merlin. Now here’s “Not all cats are grey” from one of France’s most exciting new generation quartets, Quatuor Hanson, whose own night-themed trio of works has the Dutilleux sitting at its climax, preceded by Bartók’s String Quartet in A minor of 1917 – metaphorically representing a dark time for Europe, and studied by Dutilleux before he wrote his own quartet – and Ligeti’s String Quartet No 1 “Métamorphoses nocturnes” of 1954. Beyond having one of the smile-eliciting album titles of the year, “Not all cats are grey” also thoroughly delivers on its actual contents. If you’re wondering what the title actually refers to, it’s the fact that at night time all cats suddenly look grey on account on it being more difficult to distinguish separate colours, and that in the same way it can be all too easy to hear so-called contemporary music as all sounding the same. The Hanson’s mission is therefore to bring out the myriad of contrasts between these three major works via a multi-hued night time musical landscape representing everything from sleep, dreams and hallucination, to liveliness and intense movement; and they’ve very much achieved that aim. First thing to say is that there’s a very satisfying balance to the programme’s overall architecture, thanks to their having placed the Dutilleux and Ligeti – each a series of micro-movements heard as a single movement which organically develops an initial motivic idea – as their two-book-ends; and you’re hearing an equal degree of architecture across the interpretations themselves, on both the macro and micro level. Tone and articulation-wise, there’s just the right, brightly crystal-edged, lucid-textured sound that served them so well in their Diapason Award-winning Haydn recording of 2019. Favourite snapshots? How about the exhilarating bite, folky kick, momentum and technical precision of the Ligeti’s Vivace, capriccio; then the similar qualities they bring to the even more obviously folky strains of the following Bartók’s central Allegro molto capriccioso; the slender-toned delicacy with which they open the Bartók’s Lento, and the dramatic tautness with which its long lines then proceed; the gorgeous gossamer wisps heard in the Dutilleux’s Nocturne 2, and the nimbleness, colouristic range and sense of organic progression they bring to that entire work’s exploration of different sound effects. Essentially, I won’t be surprised if this album ends up picking up an award or two, too. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

In 1765, Johann Christian Bach, who had settled in London, established with his friend Carl Friedrich Abel the prestigious "Bach Abel Concerts". Surrounded by some of the most talented artists of their generation, Margaux Blanchard and Sylvain Sartre invite us to rediscover the music that enlivened the luxurious London salons of the late 18th century. A chance to be admitted, for a moment's listening, into the very select Bach Abel Society. © Mirare