Recorded at the Konzerthaus in Vienna in 2013, this typically diverse, typically exemplary Arditti recital brings four works that were all written for the quartet on to disc for the first time. If Rebecca Saunders’ 2012 textural study Fletch – the title comes from the feathering on an arrow – seems no more engaging now than it did in live performance, Benedict Mason’s six-movement Second String Quartet from 1993 retains every bit of its quirky, sometimes mystifying charm. First performed at this concert, Luke Bedford’s naggingly memorable Wonderful Four-headed Nightingale (reworked from his 2011 double concerto Wonderful Two-headed Nightingale) seems to strive for a tonal resolution that’s always just out of reach; while in the other premiere, Pandora’s Box, the ever-unpredictable John Zorn adds a soprano (Sarah Maria Sun) to the four strings to deliver the composer’s own German text, taking the music into an expressionist world that’s sometimes close to that of the Second Viennese School, but also much more threateningly Zorn’s own.
