Stefano Scodanibbio (1956-2012) was fascinated, not to say obsessed, by string harmonics. As a double bassist he had practical experience of them, and as a composer he used them to create unearthly soundscapes. ‘Reinventions’ for string quartet, which occupied him during the period 200409, is a striking example of the ghostly, fugitive imagery that his technique and his tonal imagination could conjure up. The framework of the piece is established by three Contrapuncti (I, V and IV) from Bach’s The Art of Fugue, interspersed with arrangements of four Spanish guitar pieces and five Mexican songs.

What a mismatch and mishmash, one might imagine, with the smoochy Mexican ‘Sandunga’ rubbing shoulders with Bach at his most contrapuntally studied. But the whole, lasting more than an hour, holds together remarkably well, subtle motivic links and contrasts of mood combining to lend Scodanibbio’s approach both cohesion and variety. Scodanibbio was certainly not alone in thinking up new ways of performing The Art of Fugue but this is not merely a string quartet realisation: the octave displacement of certain melody notes through having them played as harmonics adds a shimmering patina to the music, with weird refractions of light as though shone through an irregular cube of ice. Sometimes the temperature warms and the music thaws, as in the Spanish pieces (adopting pizzicato in recognition of the guitar originals) and in the Mexican songs. But with harmonics as a constant defining factor, the music’s atmosphere, as the Quartetto Prometeo’s first-rate performance shows, is forever haunting.