Cenk Ergün’s two string quartets, “Sonare” and “Celare,” composed from 2014 to 2015, started out as one work, but they are diametrically opposed. “Sonare” is built from tightly intertwined, microtonal and microscopic rhythmic patterns which repeat, the brain glossing them with the illusion of momentum. The texture calls to mind metaphors of active animals: I hear wasps, angry but occasionally static, as if caught in amber at moments of peak aggression. Ergün instructs the performers at one point to play “like rabid dogs.” Throughout, the piece requires animalistic effort. On the EP of the two string quartets by the JACK Quartet, released this month on the label New Focus Recordings, cellist Jay Campbell told me the ensemble recorded the many patterns just two and three at a time for maximum ferocity. “You give everything in one loop, you’ll be done after three loops,” he said. “We were really going for as brutal as possible.” Each bar is drenched in the adrenaline of the survival instinct.
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