2016 marked the 100th anniversary of composer Henri Dutilleux’s birth. And so Ainsi la nuit (Thus the Night), a sublime and mysterious work for string quartet and an irrefutable masterpiece, is the keystone of the Varèse Quartet’s first album, which is rounded out by Maurice Ravel’s no less famous quartet and Thomas Adès’ Arcadiana, a surprising soundscape developed through seven evocations, pictorial, literary or musical. The common thread of this original and daring programme is an exploration of the quartet’s potential for impressionistic expressiveness, in all its forms and colours, and deeply arresting in its diversity!