Jefferson Friedman: Quartets

The Chiara String Quartet team up with noise pranksters Matmos to alternate perform this hip young composer’s quartet (the quartet handles this) and to completely disassemble them (guess who.) The pieces themselves are surprisingly sturdy, old-fashioned string quartets, and I mean “old-fashioned” in the best way: they don’t fall back on facile, faux-minimalism tics, they develop moods and then explore them, they have rich and imaginative writing for the instruments involved. They could have been written at any point in the last 100 years, though, which is where Matmos comes in. What they do to the music is fascinating, and makes for a completely different listening experience.