Dutilleux- String Quartet 'Ainsi la Nuit'

I have had the debut disc of the Belcea Quartet in my collection since when it first came out ten years ago. It won a Gramophone Award at the time. My infatuation with their fascinating rendering of the Bartok quartets, however, led me to dig it out again. It's a collection that we now see quite often in the catalogue: two French, well-loved early modernist quartets complemented by the more ascerbic Dutilleux. I chose the latter for an audition as I'm generally quite fond of Dutilleux' very lush and colourful orchestral works but I hardly knew his quartet. On paper, being composed of 12 short movements and interludes, it looks episodic. And two auditions lead me to believe it also sounds that way. It's not easy get a grasp on the musical proceedings. Sure, it reminds me to a certain extent of Bartok's Night's Music in Out of Doors, with the incessant buzz and flittering of noctural animal life. And I'm quite sure there are additional correspondences between the two masters, interested as Dutilleux is in reflecting the organismic working of memory in his music. I've read his early Piano Sonata (his op. 1, from1948) bears distinctive Bartokian fingerprints. But apart from the noctural mood the kinship is difficult to trace in this quartet. To be honest, I didn't get a lot out of it, despite the Belcea playing it with conviction enough. The recording has been made in Potton Hall - in Suffolk, close to Aldeburgh - where also the Bartok quartets have been taped. But the older recording suffers from a typical, glassy digital sheen. Fortunately, the Bartoks are much more natural sounding.