Chronos, Kairos et Aiôn
Florence M. Tremblay (b.1997)
Insides (2023)
Louis-Michel Tougas
String Quartet No. 2 (2024)
Olivier St-Pierre (b.1987)
Chronos, Kairos et Aiôn (2022)
Quatuor Mémoire
rec. 2024/25, Eglise Saint+Alexandre, Québec, Canada
Mnémosyne MN001 [60]

The label Mnémosyne here serves up, for listeners’ delectation, three contemporary Canadian (Montréal to be specific) String Quartets. They are of pretty recent provenance as you can see from the header.

The packaging for the CD verges on the Spartan. In the version I had there was simply a stiff card-fold case and a pocket for the disc; no booklet and nothing about the artists or the composers or these specific works. There is more to be quarried from the internet. In a way that lack of information helped concentrate my attention on the sound of these three single-movement quartets. They are each played by Quatuor Mémoire with a caring precision. Everything seems sharply honed and closely studied. Attentive sympathy and feeling are voiced by the four players.

InFlorence M. Tremblay’s Insides (2023) the music which we hear slowly paid out is caught in a web between dissonant whisper and confiding protest. Tremblay is herself a cellist and has her home in Montréal. It seems she has an affinity for early music although that is not something to which she opens the door in this work. I wonder if this Tremblay is related to that other Canadian composer with an allegiance to electro-acoustics, Gilles Tremblay (1932-2017). Louis-Michel Tougas’String Quartet No. 2 (2024) takes no prisoners: it busies itself with a cortège of buzzes, squeaks and squeals, yet ultimately finds a placid and surprisingly healing quietude.  Tougas, a young man, is the founder of the Mnémosyne label. The three-movement Chronos, Kairos et Aiôn by Olivier St-Pierre is even further out along the modernistic promontory. The work’s feral aspects absorb and express harshness with whistling, stabs, whispers, hammer-blows, insect-fury and slashes.  The three movements are telescoped into a single track; it’s rather a shame that they were not separately tracked.

The sound secured by the Mnémosyne audio-technical team shows that they recognise that what they do is of the same high calling as that heard from these elite executant musicians.

Rob Barnett