Alfredo ARACIL (b.1954)
String Quartet no.3 (2004) [18:18]
Música de Cámara (String Quartet no.1) (1975) [16:22]
String Quartet no.2 (1991) [10:08]
String Quartet no.4 Figura Ante el Espejo (2010) [17:49]
Cuarteto Bretón (Anne Marie North (violin); Antonio Cárdenas
(violin); Iván Martín (viola); John Stokes (cello))
rec. Madrid, May 2010. DDD
VERSO VRS 2095 [62:43] 
This release contains Spanish composer Alfredo Aracil's complete string quartets
to date, spanning thirty-five years of creativity. Aracil has never been a
prolific composer, and an internet search suggests that this is only the second
disc of his music to be published to date.
The String Quartet no.1 is rather generically entitled Música
de Cámara ('Chamber Music'), after the book of poems by James Joyce.
Like Joyce's writing itself, this is an enigmatic work - a quartet in suspended
animation. Nothing really happens, as such: there is no sense of narrative
or structure, just a succession of long, drawn-out sostenuti, either as low
drones or high-pitched squeals, interspersed with brief moments of silence.
All three movements are slow, with few bursts of activity or loudness. Aracil
composed this the year following composition classes at Darmstadt given by
Stockhausen, Kagel, Wolff and Xenakis, and although their influences are clearly
lurking, this does not sound like any of them. Appropriately, it ends without
ending, so to speak. Clearly not a work of immediate wide appeal, but there
is certainly more to it than the above description implies.
The two-movement String Quartet no.2 was written more than fifteen
years later, but although quite different in some respects, the interest in
silence and the passage or non-passage of time is once again striking. There
is now simple melody, harmony and rhythm. There is also serialist treatment
of material, which is mainly derived, unlikely as it seems, from the Cavatina
of Beethoven's String Quartet op.130. The second movement is the only
one in all Aracil's quartets to have some faster music in it.
Almost another fifteen years passed before Aracil's String Quartet no.3
was written. This work is rather like a musical mountain-climb - slowly, almost
imperceptibly, the listener is taken to higher and higher plateaux, with rubbed
strings sounding like laboured breathing as the atmosphere becomes more and
more rarefied over the slowly unfolding time-span. All the while some semblance
of a generally accessible quartet is played out, the strings swirling around
moodily like mountain mists. The violins in particular have to play some extremely
high notes - the final pitches are of Mount Everest summit proportions, and
the skill with which the Bretón Quartet sustain the sound is, aptly,
breathtaking. A visionary, spellbinding work.
Bizarrely, the Fourth String Quartet begins literally almost exactly
where the Third leaves off, despite the fact that it was written six
years later. This work was commissioned by the Spanish Ministry of Culture
and dedicated to the Bretón Quartet. It is subtitled Figura ante
el Espejo ('Figure Before the Mirror', inaccurately translated as 'Figure
Facing the Mirror' in the booklet), and purports to be a reflection on reflection,
as it were - subtly altered perceptions of reality. Thus the opening passages
are a backwards distortion of the closing bars of the Third Quartet,
and from there angles and refractions subtly deflect the music. The booklet
notes explain this, but in slightly awkward translation of a Spanish text
of already considerable post-modern density - giving sentences like: "we are
also made to feel that we remain in suspension, like the poetic text or music
itself; music which transcends itself by becoming more sonorous and leading
us to no other place but its own centre." Overall, the quartet is quite similar
to the Third, but with reminiscences of the First - as if Aracil
were in some way completing a circle.
None of these works is easy listening; not by any means. The acoustic world
created for this medium by Aracil is like no one else's. It is possible that
he shares some of Gloria Coates's deconstructive aims in her quartets, but
his methods and effects are quite different. Aracil's quartets are innovative,
taxing and unsettling, but they are not unmusical - there are no ear-bludgeoning
dissonances or cacophonous tutti here. For the intrepid explorer of new music,
this is a relatively straightforward challenge - and possibly a satisfying
experience. Certainly, the very capable Bretón Quartet pull all the
strings at their disposal to make it so.
The sound quality is generally very good, but there are some audible editing
joins dotted about the disc, and one or two misplaced twangs right at a couple
of track-ends. The booklet is attractive and the notes informative, even if
the language they are written in is rather extravagant.
Byzantion
None of these works is easy listening but the very capable Bretón Quartet
pull all the strings at their disposal to make it a satisfying experience.