Quatuor Psophos - Nicolas Bacri: String Quartets No. 3, 4, 5, 6 (2007)

The 2007 release of Nicolas Bacri: String Quartets Nos. 3,4,5,6 finds Nicolas Bacri as one of the outstanding figures in contemporary French music, a composer who began his career in the 1980s as a serialist. While he hasn't exactly turned his coat inside out, Bacri is hardly a card-carrying member of the fraternity at this juncture -- his music is clearly designed to elicit specific emotional responses and has a natural sense of flow and development, not to mention ample excitement and drama. There is never a sense anywhere in this music where the composer is saying, "Here are the elements the music is made out of, and there -- is the result." Bacri's music is the sum total of contact with a wide range of influences and impulses, yet like Henri Dutilleux, his own voice is placed at the fore.
While Bacri has garnered acclaim for his work in a variety of genres, his cycle of string quartets -- which remains in progress(String Quartet No. 7 premiered in 2007) -- has elicited particular praise among European critics. French label Ar Re-Se has made available Bacri's quartets Nos. 3-6, composed between 1985 and 2006, with the Psophos Quartet. This is a fortunate match of artist and composer, as the Psophos plays as a matter of routine the quartets of composers to whom Bacri's music can at least be superficiallycompared -- Berg, Bartók, Dutilleux, and Webern are all in their standing repertoire. Founded in 1997, the Psophos is a young quartet, and it plays Bacri's music with all the strength, aggression, and passion of youth. For those who like contemporary music in the "classic" twentieth century style, yet prefer it not too aerodynamic and abstract, nor too minimal and cloying, Ar Re-Se's Nicolas Bacri: String Quartets Nos. 3,4,5,6 will be like a breath of fresh air. Moreover, anyone who loves string quartets really ought to hear what fireworks the Psophos Quartet can set off; this disc is both very thrilling and intellectually satisfying.