HELMUT LACHENMANN (b.1935): Grido, Reigen seliger Geister, Gran Torso.

Description: 1972's Gran Torso is of these works the one that does what one might expect of a string quartet by Lachenmann; it explores the alternative playing possibilities of the ensemble, largely to the exclusion of conventional playing - 'musique concrète instrumentale" as the composer once described it. The second quartet, "Round dance of Blessed Souls" concentrates on one technique - whispered bowed sounds, breathlike and ethereal. T he work -an extended one, at nearly half an hour - seems more coherent because of this; the subtle sounds, punctuated by ephemeral intrusions of more concrete (though no more technically conventional) material form a continuous and compelling soundscape. The third quartet borrows elements of the first two; in some ways it resembles conventional quartet textures the most of the three, while continuing Lachenmann's exploration of the boundaries of instrumental sound. Arditti String Quartet.