Arditti Quartet - Donaueschinger Musiktage 2006, Vol.1 (2007)

For some time now, I have been saddened by the seeming disappearance of the "true" musical avant-garde. Yes, there have been some promising new releases from young composers eager to experiment; Rebecca Saunders, Jason Eckardt, and some of Matthias Pintscher's work come to mind, though it's difficult to tell whether these efforts will be sustained. Luciano Berio is dead. Complexity seems to have run its course. New releases by Brian Ferneyhough and Pascal Dusapin hold out hope that the flame is still alive, but are such flickerings the real deal--or merely shadows on the wall of Plato's cave?
Perhaps the avant-garde is truly gone, and my longing for it though I confess I'm only 32 is only a kind of false nostalgia. But when I listened to the "new" Arditti String Quartet (Arditti, Sarkissjan, Ehlers, and Fels) revel in the works on this first volume from the 2006 Donaueshinger Musiktage, I couldn't help but feel the stirrings of a great and lasting excitement. The Ardittis have long helped shaped my musical tastes and interests, and I learned early on to snap up whatever fare they offered. This disc reinforces my admiration for the group, and I welcome the opportunity to hear its newest members advancing the cause of New Music.
The recording is comprised of four new works: two by familiar names, and two by lesser-known young composers. "Lenger," by Norwegian Ole-Henrik Moe (b. 1966), is a stark, nails-on-the-chalkboard kaleidoscope of sound, bordering on the electronic. Scored for string quartet plus solo violin, it's nearly fourteen minutes long, with stretches of repeated, machinic sounds and motion contrasting sharply with violent, sometimes haunting interjections.
"Joie voilee," by Jordanian Saed Haddad (b. 1972), is a set of sixteen miniatures ranging from two minutes to ten seconds each. The titles of these sections--On Purity, On Happiness, On Warmth, On Despair, On Death, etc.--as well as the composer's comments on being a Christian Arab and an "outsider," suggest a religious programme that this listener finds unconvincing. The music stands well enough on its own, and even if it occasionally seems derivative, there is promise here.
The works by the two more familiar composers on the disc Wolfgang Rihm and Julio Estrada are some of their finest work. In my mind, these composers represent very divergent tendencies within New Music, and if I have tended in the past to prefer Estrada's work to Rihm's, I should say here that I find both of these works equally compelling in their own right. Interestingly, both works call for a vocal addition to the string quartet medium: Rihm's "Akt und Tag" using a soprano, though more in the mode of Ferneyhough's fourth string quartet than of Schoenberg's second; and Estrada's "Quotidianus" employing sounds of the composer's own voice as a kind of primal, animal addition to the strings.
It is invigorating to know to realize that New Music is not only alive but thriving. The Arditti Quartet is an indispensable part of that thriving, and we are fortunate to be alive to hear it.