Henri Dutilleux / Pascal Dusapin (Arditti Quartet Edition 16)

Amazon.com
It's an ironic characteristic of 20th-century music in general that Dutilleux, a modern master of orchestral music and large scale forms, might have produced his masterpiece with Ainsi la nuit, a string quartet of 17 minutes. Yet the intimate medium bears the weight of his succinct lyricism and dense passion, with the economy characteristic of a great composer of his maturity. Pascal Dusapin's two quartets, following his elder colleague's masterwork on this disc, don't fare quite as well: Dusapin is a gifted young French composer fascinated with the sounds of New York minimalism, but his sonorous writing, however pleasing, seem simplistic and overbearing when placed next to Dutilleux's music. Dutilleux's quartet alone, however, more than justifies the purchase of this record; and the Arditti Quartet, as always, is superb. --Joshua Cody

Henri Dutilleux / Pascal Dusapin (Arditti Quartet Edition 16),Dutilleux,Dusapin,Arditti String Quartet,Disques Montaigne,Chamber Music & Recitals,Classical

Average customer rating:

Henri Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit; Pascal Dusapin: Time Zones; Quatuor III Manufacturer: Montaigne ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music All Works by Dutilleux | Dutilleux, Henri | ( D ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music ASIN: B0000DETDC Release Date: 2000-01-01

Average customer rating: Outstanding versions. Wonderful Dutilleux, but the Dusapin tends to the ordinary

Henri Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit; Pascal Dusapin: Time Zones; Quatuor III Manufacturer: Disques Montaigne ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music All Works by Dutilleux | Dutilleux, Henri | ( D ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music Classical | Imports | Stores | Music ASIN: B00004WKJ9 Release Date: 2000-09-12

Tracks:

1. Ainsi La Nuit: (Intro) I. Nocturne
2. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 1) II. Miroir D'Espace
3. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 2) III. Litanies
4. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 3) IV. Litanies 2
5. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 4) V. Constellations
6. Ainsi La Nuit: VI. Nocturne 2
7. Ainsi La Nuit: VII. Temps Suspendu
8. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zones 1, 2
9. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 3
10. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 4
11. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 5, 6
12. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 7
13. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 8
14. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 9, 10, 11, 12
15. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 13
16. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 14
17. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 15, 16, 17
18. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 18
19. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 19
20. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 20
21. Quatuor II, 'Time Zones': Time Zone 21, 22, 23, 24
22. Quatour III: I.
23. Quatour III: II.
24. Quatour III: III.
25. Quatour III: IV.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding versions........2005-11-08

It's very complicated to write a review in Amazon, as you don't really know exactly what are this stars for; if they are for the works, for the performers, for the technical engineers, the booklet, all together...

Generally I use to give 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 stars to the performing version, not to the work itself. I know there's people who try to evaluate a work of art, putting stars to the artistic creation; I really don't agree. Of course I like some works much more than others, but I try to accept all of them as works of art. The performing, as something based on technical resources and much more comparable, is more easy to evaluate.

In this case, here we have some french quartets played in an outstanding way by the leaders of contemporany-music nowadays; the Arditti Quartet. I've listened some other versions for Duttileux's Quartet "Ainsi la nuit", but no one with the precision and master technical playing of the Arditti Qt. For Dusapin I don't know any other performing, but I really think it will be hard to beat this marvellous recording.

You can like or dislike the works, but the performance is 5 stars with no doubt, in my opinion.

Wonderful Dutilleux, but the Dusapin tends to the ordinary.......2003-12-03

This disc in the Arditti Quartet's bewilderingly extensive output is devoted to French quartets: Henri Dutilleux's 1976 classic Ainsi la Nuit and more recent quartets by the Xenakis pupil Pascal Dusapin. While the Dutilleux shows a major composer in full maturity and at the top of his form, the Dusapin is evidently a composer still finding his individual voice--and that is the primary problem with this disc.

Dutilleux's quartet has to be one of the finest post-war works in the genre. In seven movements (plus interludes) that play without a break, this seventeen minute work conjures up a bewildering variety of nocturnal moods, colours and atmospheres. Yet it is always strongly coherent, the writing unified by the composer's tendency to treat the four instruments of the string quartet as if they were one super-stringed instrument. The performance on this disc is absolutely stunning--the precision of the Arditti Quartet is matched by an imagination and colouristic range that's second to none.

The Dusapin works are more problematical. His second quartet, 'Time Zones', is a collection of 24 miniatures, again playing without a break, supposedly evoking the sensation of travelling constantly from place to place. For much of the quartet, though, I felt it came very close to an earthbound generic modernism; taking inspiration from various composers (Xenakis, Reich, Boulez, Berio, Dutilleux himself) without cohering into an individual voice. The later, more ferociously Xenakian sections did start to forge the work into a consistently dynamic whole, but 25 minutes into a work is no place to do so.

The third quartet is a step forward, though not necessarily more than one such step. Perhaps as a reaction to the extreme formal extension of the second quartet, Dusapin here retreats to almost the traditional four-movement form, with the slow movement placed third (I say almost, because the scherzo isn't very conventional, as it starts slow and ends fast). This is well-crafted music, but once again I did feel that it wanted a bit more of an individual voice.

This disc can be recommended in as much as that it offers the best performance I've heard of the Dutilleux. Any recommendation for the Dusapin has to be less positive, though others may find his blend of modernism to be more appealing than I did.

Average customer rating:

Debussy, Varese, Dutilleux, Jolivet, Messiaen, Dusapin: French Works for Flute Andre Jolivet , Olivier Messiaen , Pascal Dusapin , Eric Tanguy , Philippe Hersant , and Juliette Hurel and Couvert Manufacturer: Valois ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD All Works by Dutilleux | Dutilleux, Henri | ( D ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music All Works by Debussy | Debussy, Claude | ( D ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music Jolivet, André | ( J ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music All Works by Messiaen | Messiaen, Olivier | ( M ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music Flute | Reeds & Winds | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music ASIN: B00005UEBD Release Date: 2002-06-11

Average customer rating: mysteries of the night, place,time and space explored

Henri Dutilleux / Pascal Dusapin (Arditti Quartet Edition 16) Manufacturer: Disques Montaigne ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music All Works by Dutilleux | Dutilleux, Henri | ( D ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music ASIN: B000003VQE Release Date: 1994-04-26

Tracks:

1. Ainsi La Nuit: (Intro) I. Nocturne
2. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 1) II. Miroir D'espace
3. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 2) III. Litanies
4. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 3) IV. Litanies 2
5. Ainsi La Nuit: (Parenthese 4) V. Constellations
6. Ainsi La Nuit: VI. Nocturne 2
7. Ainsi La Nuit: VII. Temps Suspendu
8. Time Zones 1, 2
9. Time Zone 3
10. Time Zone 4
11. Time Zones 5, 6
12. Time Zone 7
13. Time Zone 8
14. Time Zones 9, 10, 11, 12
15. Time Zone 13
16. Time Zone 14
17. Time Zones 15, 16, 17
18. Time Zone 18
19. Time Zone 19
20. Time Zone 20
21. Time Zones 21, 22, 23, 24
22. Quatuor III: I.
23. Quatuor III: II.
24. Quatuor III: III.
25. IV.

Amazon.com

It's an ironic characteristic of 20th-century music in general that Dutilleux, a modern master of orchestral music and large scale forms, might have produced his masterpiece with Ainsi la nuit, a string quartet of 17 minutes. Yet the intimate medium bears the weight of his succinct lyricism and dense passion, with the economy characteristic of a great composer of his maturity. Pascal Dusapin's two quartets, following his elder colleague's masterwork on this disc, don't fare quite as well: Dusapin is a gifted young French composer fascinated with the sounds of New York minimalism, but his sonorous writing, however pleasing, seem simplistic and overbearing when placed next to Dutilleux's music. Dutilleux's quartet alone, however, more than justifies the purchase of this record; and the Arditti Quartet, as always, is superb. --Joshua Cody

Customer Reviews:

mysteries of the night, place,time and space explored.......2002-01-21

Dutilleux's music has a deep brooding at times narrative to fulfill. His creativity is magnitized towards the unmentionable, that abstract phanthom that Sartre once said we can only reach with phanthom hands. "Ainsi la nuit" involves, engages the deep mysteries, the unknowness,the opaqueness and sensuality of the night. The nocturne is perhaps the most enduring genre in music,having a formidable longevity in how the night has excited the most imaginative musical minds, as Bartok, Chopin and Carter.A loose translation of "ainsi la nuit" is "Of the Night", or "such is the night", but there are new interpretive readings here that Arditti brings to this work you may not have experienced before. These undefined narrative images of Dutilleux, Arditti simply keeps this realm at a distance allowing their formidable timbral clarity and virtuosity of extended means to speak as the works voice.Otherwise the dnager with Dutilleux music is that it can transgress into the commonplace lyricism. That is a dnager Arditti admirably avoids here. And there are wonderful sheaths of timbral string canvas to explore interpretively here with barely perceptible tremoli,pencil thin harmonics, wonderfully placed plucked tones, like high up on the Cello's "c" string, a warmer effect.There is also an overwheliming ensemble-like "voice" where Arditti speaks as one,yet reamining as their signature constitution as four independent soloists, unlike the more harmonious, blended Kronos Quartet.
There are seven images here portrayed and interpreted 1. Nocturne, 2.Miroir d'espace,3.Litanies, 4 Litanies 2, 5. Constellations, 6. Nocturne 2, and lastly 7. Temps suspendu. This is Dutilleux's only quartet from 1976 and is representative of his late period deeply felt in his orchestral canvas "Timbre, Espace et Mouvement", and the Violin and Cello Concertos.

The "Time Zones" of Pascal Dusapin has also a formidable aesthetic frame to explore,more like an unattached, attached on-going diary. There are some 24 movements here, all written at different times and places, and that seems to be an important seminal dimension of the work. I found it distracting and really not producing the aesthetic complexity of the life world that living inhabiting different metropoli may impart to the creative persona. Many of the initial movements I found lame and predictably the same, those written in Rome, Rotterdam, Sao Paulo. It's not until we arrive at Time Zone #18 where a trio manifests itself for two violins and viola where the blood begins to become engaged. This #18, is a blistering gestural 'zone', with great abandoned virtuosity. Dusapin's imagery,his creative energy seems to become animated with relatively miniature frames, as the duet and trio. (He has wonderful unaccompanied solos, Indeed, and a trio "musique fugitives".) Yet the miniature musical frame doesn't seem to interest Dusapin as say Gyorgy Kurtag or Nicolaus A. Huber have impressively surveyed in their work.

Dusapin's "Quarter #3 is a bit more focused, with more assertive gestures. And now he has the overall classic coherence, the unfolding of the movements working for him.

Track Listings:

1. Ignis Noster / Helle Nacht
2. In the Age of Enlightenment
3. Inner Time
4. Instrumental & Vocal Works
5. JANÁCEK / DVORÁK - Patrick Strub
6. Johann Pachelbel: Musicalische Ergötzung (Musical Entertainments) for 2 Scordato Violins & Continuo - Les Cyclopes
7. L'Orientale
8. La Transfirguration
9. Leos Janácek: String Quartets No. 1 "Kreutzer Sonata" & No. 2 "Intimate Letters" - Manfred Quartet, Bourgogne
10. Les Musiciens De L'Europe (Musicians of Europe) - Bach, Hummel, Campra, Rameau, Praetorius, etc.

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