Listeners familiar with the epigrammatic chamber works of
György Kurtág may note many similarities in the concentrated music of his compatriot and younger contemporary, László Vidovsky. The gnomic Zwölf Steichquartette (2000) is austere, focused, and remarkably free of rhetoric and conventions; these short quartets -- some under two minutes in length -- are unassuming and unpretentious studies of sonority, and stand outside the epic tradition established by Beethoven in his late quartets and continued in the great cycles by
Bartók,
Shostakovich, and Carter. Vidovsky's method seems arbitrary and iconoclastic, but his music is easy to understand, since each quartet's sonority or central idea is clearly presented at the outset, and followed logically to its end. The
Auer Quartet, recorded in 2002, is remarkably unified in tone and execution, so that it often resembles a single instrument in its homogeneity, perhaps most similar in some of the quartets to a wheezing harmonium or a microtonal hurdy-gurdy. The 12 Duos (1987-1989) are also quite brief, simple, and sparely voiced, with entwining lines that more often move in tandem than in counterpoint. Violinists
András Keller and Zoltán Gál play with tight precision and sympathetic expression, but the inferior sound of the 1989 recording is a little distracting, and it detracts from the subtle quality of the performance.