JACK Quartet / Radiant Darkness - NOSPR

‘Into the night’ (‘In iij. Noct.’) – thus Georg Friedrich Haas invites us to his String Quartet No 3, quoting, even in melody, Gesualdo’s sombre Tenebrae. Yet stepping into darkness does not have to entail tumbling into the abyss. Closing one’s eyes can, more often than not, bring the richest kind of awareness – the kind every devoted listener longs for – a chance to open their ears fully. It enables a return from the Gutenbergian cosmos, which is almost exclusively visible, to the older world, which is above all audible. This return, as advocated by the celebrated philosopher Marshall McLuhan or by the architect Juhani Pallasmaa, guarantees ‘an understanding of space’ and ‘a sense of connection and solidarity’. 

Why not take that journey, if only for fifty minutes? That is the span of the most renowned among eleven string quartets by the remarkable Austrian composer. While performing this work, the musicians see neither the score nor one another. Their world is made up solely of raw, microtonal gestures – the only means by which they can communicate with each other and with the audience to build a dialogue, a concert, an entire universe... 

Michał Mendyk