Ravel, Dutilleux & Hough: String Quartets

To introduce this recording of two French string quartets, the Takács Quartet asked English master-pianist Stephen Hough, who is also a composer, to write a new work. Hough came up with his String Quartet No. 1, subtitled “Les Six rencontres”—a sequence of “six encounters” with urban life (by implication Parisian). Each of these is a deft musical snapshot, ranging from the louche whimsy of “Au parc” (“In the park”) to the bustle and energy of “Au marché” (“At the market”). The Takács Quartet’s super-precise style finds them beautifully at home in Hough’s idiom, and also in the spectrum of flickering modernist sounds explored in Henri Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit (Thus the night). They then bring a wonderfully fresh approach to Ravel’s String Quartet—music that’s much more familiar, yet still a miracle of poised loveliness.