I’d heard of the Ruysdael Quartet but hadn’t heard them play until this disc came my way, and now I regret that it took me so long. Not only are the Ruysdael unfailingly musical, they’ve honed a formidable technique since their formation in The Hague in 1996 – intonation is spot-on, ensemble razor-sharp and their diaphanous, meticulously balanced sound illuminates every musical strand, even in the most elaborate passages of Ainsi la nuit. Indeed, their Dutilleux teems with glistening, sometimes bristling detail. ‘Miroir d’espace’ creeps and flutters, insect-like, for instance, while ‘Litanies II’ has an oddly affecting eerie lyricism and ‘Constellations’ spasms with nervous energy. Most striking of all, perhaps, is how the Ruysdael give shape and direction to Dutilleux’s sequence of brief movements and parenthetical interludes; it’s a work that can seem episodic but coheres persuasively in this concert performance.

I’m impressed, too, by how scrupulously the quartet attend to dynamic markings. Listen at 4'24" in the first movement of the Ravel, say, where the opening theme is recapitulated with a pianissimo so gentle it’s like an exhalation of relief following the development section’s tumult. Or turn to the beginning of the Très lent, which the musicians paint with chiaroscuro worthy of the group’s namesake (the Dutch landscape painter Salomon van Ruysdael). In fact, this is an unusually dark reading; even the passionné climax (starting around 5'15") finds the Ryusdael turning inwards rather than surging ahead, as the Arcanto Quartet do (Harmonia Mundi, 11/10). In the finale, on the other hand, the playing is so clearly delineated it’s as if they were etching glass.

I only wish they’d given us the Debussy Quartet, too, as the Arcanto and others have done, rather than an encore. That said, Tony Kime’s arrangement of Clair de lune is effective; and although the Ruysdael’s interpretation evokes bittersweet nostalgia rather than a moonlit reverie, it’s sheer magic nonetheless.