Henri Dutilleux / Pascal Dusapin

It's an ironic characteristic of 20th-century music in general that Dutilleux, a modern master of orchestral music and large scale forms, might have produced his masterpiece with Ainsi la nuit, a string quartet of 17 minutes. Yet the intimate medium bears the weight of his succinct lyricism and dense passion, with the economy characteristic of a great composer of his maturity. Pascal Dusapin's two quartets, following his elder colleague's masterwork on this disc, don't fare quite as well: Dusapin is a gifted young French composer fascinated with the sounds of New York minimalism, but his sonorous writing, however pleasing, seem simplistic and overbearing when placed next to Dutilleux's music. Dutilleux's quartet alone, however, more than justifies the purchase of this record; and the Arditti Quartet, as always, is superb. --Joshua Cody