Zaïde Quartet: Dessner, Reich

The Strad Issue: September 2026

Description: Reich’s iconic work is the highlight from this French quartet

Musicians: Zaïde Quartet

Works: Dessner: Pulsing. Reich: Different Trains

Catalogue number: NOMADMUSIC NMM126

The Paris-based Zaïde Quartet has championed contemporary creations in live concerts, but this is the ensemble’s first album of recent works. At just 36 minutes, it’s quite a brief affair, though there’s no mistaking the foursome’s commitment across the two pieces.

Steve Reich’s Different Trains is undoubtedly the focus here, and the Zaïde players offer a nimble, rich and highly characterful account, one whose layered lines are left almost unblended, and whose imitations of speech rhythms and melodies flow with convincing eloquence. There’s a lot of sonic beauty in the Zaïde players’ eager opening movement, which makes the piece’s slow descent into the brutality of World War II all the more powerful. Again, however, it’s the quartet’s clarity, even a sense of slight detachment, that makes its vision of Different Trains’ central darkness all the more persuasive. Rhythmic threads threaten to fray a little at rare moments in the closing movement, but the piece’s luminous close seems to shine tenderly from within.

Somewhat less persuasive, however, is the companion piece. The Zaïde players have had a long and fruitful collaborative relationship with US composer Bryce Dessner, who has also been championed by Reich. Pulsing is a substantial section from his ballet score Impermanence, inspired by the burning of Paris’s Notre-Dame and the climate crisis. Alongside Reich’s perpetually shifting, restless creation, it comes across as somewhat four-square, despite the group’s vibrant performance. Recorded sound is detailed, close and warm.

David Kettle