Dutilleux • Stephen Hough • Ravel
Stephen Hough: String Quartet No. 1, ‘Les Six recontres’; Dutilleux: String Quartet, ‘Ainsi la nuit’; Ravel: String Quartet
Takács Quartet
Hyperion CDA68400 67:48 mins
This recording really, as indicated: we feel at once that we’re being let in on an important secret, not fit for philistine ears, a secret enhanced by the modernist Ravel’s surprise bass line of a simple major scale. From here on the Takács Quartet are alive to every inflection in Ravel’s meticulously marked score, so that we live the journeys of each movement with them. In particular, they bring out the dangerous quality in many of his crescendos – performers, he complained, tended to start them too soon, so flattening their impact.
