Rihm: String Quartets Vol. 3

Album review

Col Legno's third volume of Wolfgang Rihm's string quartets is, like its predecessors, an album of vigorous and challenging works that defy easy descriptions, resist stylistic associations, and put listeners on their mettle. If the fragmentary gestures, sudden digressions, and unconventional sounds (wood blocks, voices) of the String Quartet No. 7, "Veränderungen" (1985), are signs of Rihm's restless search for a music freed of expectations, then the advanced techniques and sonic distortions of the String Quartet No. 8 (1987-1988) and the unpredictable evolution of simple diatonic ideas in the String Quartet No. 9, "Quartettsatz" (1992-1993), may be regarded as even more evasive maneuvers, seemingly scattered and inconsistent, but designed to prevent anticipation and to train the players and the audience to stay in the moment. The Minguet Quartett succeeds admirably in this intensely virtuosic music, and makes Rihm's seemingly disjointed but extraordinarily fecund works coherent through its tight, focused playing and alertness to all gradations of tone, timbre, and dynamics. Because Col Legno's reproduction is well-balanced, clear, and resonant, the Minguet Quartett sounds utterly natural and unprocessed, though a bit subdued in presence.

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