Conlon Nancarrow may be most famous for his player piano studies, all of which were performed at the Southbank Centre last weekend, but his instrumental music is worth a listen too. His Third String Quartet is perhaps his most important effort for 'actual' performers rather than machines, but on Sunday night the Arditti Quartet also made a decent case for the First Quartet.
Good news for skeptics: modernist music can be beautiful. If what keeps listeners away from the “difficult” music written in the past century is a fear of dissonance, they can rest assured.
