The busy textures of Conlon Nancarrow’s 1945 String Quartet No. 1 often anticipate the canonic movement, bluesy sensibility, and fidgety rhythms that he would develop to more rigorous and concise effect throughout his long series of studies for player piano. Not surprisingly, the Arditti Quartet makes the best possible case for this score, although its articulation grows slightly heavier and more generalized as the first movement progresses.
Nancarrow wrote his Third Quartet especially for the Ardittis in 1987, and the ensemble recorded the work shortly thereafter for the defunct Gramavision label. As with their live 2005 Wigmore Hall performance (type Q10317 in Search Reviews), the Ardittis’ studio remake reveals the depths to which the ensemble has absorbed the score’s beastly challenges over the years, particularly in the second movement’s difficult-to-control harmonics. Incidentally, Nancarrow had worked out much of the Third Quartet’s material in the previously unpublished Trilogy for Player Piano, included in this collection.
The Ardittis also give us four of the player piano studies in string arrangements, as well as the brief and wild Toccata for violin and piano (Nancarrow wisely adapted the difficult keyboard part for player piano in the 1980s) that counts among the composer’s earliest surviving works. Needless to say, this is a valuable release, capped by Wergo’s excellent engineering and Felix Myer’s scholarly yet accessible booklet notes.
