Review – Carducci Quartet play Kurtag, Clarke, Reich and Debussy at Aldeburgh Festival 2026

Kurtág — who celebrated his 100th birthday in February — is a spikey billing. Uncompromising. Someone who requires a briefing document before settling down to engage. Conversely, he makes little demands in terms of duration, relying instead on paucity to communicate intensely specific meaning — the kind of perfectionism I can get behind. Contrary to what one might assume about this ten minute twelve movement string quartet, there was heart found amongst the sparse and volatile material. Kurtág almost seemed likeable, maybe even relatable.

Reich’s 2010 work honouring 9/11 is a contradictory experience. The title is rightfully portentous, though Carducci Quartet’s Matthew Denton might have held back on the specific detail found in the accompanying audio track of first responders, bystanders and psalm singers. There was likely more art found in leaving out that detail. The setting of these real-life distorted voice tracks accompanied with musical renditions is peak Reich. It might even be a little too polished in comparison to Reich’s earlier greatness. Incredibly, the three movement work has a narrative arc which concludes with a sense of uneasy comfort. But whilst it referenced humanity it didn’t ask the questions of humanity I need art to lead on. The work leaves me cold.

Rebecca Clarke’s ten minute Adagio from a work that very nearly could have been a complete String Quartet led on pathos and platformed accomplishment. Clarke draws heavily on Germanic twentieth century romanticism making Vaughan Williams’ harmonic language in comparison feel sentimentally twee and Herbert Howells’ a try-hard who by and large earned his stripes.

Clarke sounds progressive up until the point we hear Debussy’s string quartet. Debussy feels daring, punchy, sometimes unrelenting. There is harmonic language that predates Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht. But Debussy’s quartet isn’t all dark forests, misunderstandings and hard-won forgiveness. Intense expression and raw uninhibited joy (particularly in the second movement) dominated the score. Heartfelt exchanges in the third movement. Urgent, unapologetic exuberance in the fourth. The Carducci played it as a group who know each other well enough to take risks — the third movement’s viola, spare and unadorned, was the afternoon’s most quietly affecting moment.

Heard before this Debussy, Reich’s containment of trauma felt like a category error — and Clarke’s accomplishment, real as it is, looks like someone working fluently in a language Debussy had already moved beyond. I left enriched. I left empowered. Study without examination.