Since its establishment in 1975, the Takács Quartet has steadily built a stellar international reputation for technical brilliance, innovative projects and award-winning recordings. This latest features the first string quartet composed by virtuoso pianist Stephen Hough (b. 1961), specially commissioned by the Takács Quartet as a companion piece for the quartets by Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ravel on this disc. 

Hough’s Les Six rencontres (2021) comprises six short movements that imagine places (‘au boulevard’, ‘au théâtre’) where unspecified ‘encounters’ involving the group of French composers known as ‘Les Six’ might have occurred. Each distinct mood is bursting with colour and contrasting textures, from darting spikiness to hymn-like serenity. 

Ainsi la nuit (1973-6) similarly consists of short, contrasting poetic atmospheres, but Dutilleux’s tightly controlled and intense sound world is markedly different. Subtle tonal shifts and threads of sound are at times so delicate they seem to glisten. 

More splendour awaits in Ravel’s famous (and only) String Quartet in F (1902-3), which pulses and surges with a beautiful clarity of line. The tension in the guitar-like second movement is superbly managed,...