Editor's Choice
Gramophone Magazine
February 2025

BBC Music Magazine
February 2025
Chamber Choice

Marmen Quartet

Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1 'Métamorphoses nocturnes'
Bartók: String Quartet No. 4, Sz 91
Bartók: String Quartet No. 4, Sz 91: V. Allegro molto
Ligeti: String Quartet No. 2: I. Allegro nervoso
Ligeti: String Quartet No. 2: Sostenuto, molto calmo
Ligeti: String Quartet No. 2: Allegro con delicatezza - stets sehr mild

For its first recording for BIS Records, the Marmen Quartet tackles three major works from the twentieth-century string quartet literature. The two quartets by György Ligeti belong to two different periods in the composer’s output. Written before Ligeti left Hungary and emigrated to the West, the First, subtitled ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’, represents the peak of his ‘Hungarian’ period. Regarded as a virtuoso exercise, the work reveals the influences of Béla Bartók, particularly from his Third and Fourth Quartets. Ligeti’s Second Quartet belongs to his second period, particularly rich in significant works. Considered by the composer as a response to the works of his illustrious predecessors such as Mozart, Beethoven, Bartók and Berg, the Second Quartet, with its calculated anarchy, dynamic extremes and sublime climaxes, is not only one of Ligeti’s masterpieces but also a true classic of modernism.

Béla Bartók’s Fourth Quartet, which had a particularly strong influence on Ligeti, is widely seen as one of his most radical; it requires high levels of technical accomplishment from the performers, yet reveals a deep understanding of the instruments, and draws an un-precedented range of colour and character from them.