Ligeti's string quartets reveal more vividly than any other of his works how his voice developed after he left Hungary in 1957 to settle in West Germany. Metamorphoses Nocturnes dates from 1954, when his compositional style owed more to Bartok than the postwar avant garde. The second is one of his greatest achievements, written in 1968 when he had absorbed all he needed from his European contemporaries and forged an original and distinctive style.

The differences are startling, and the performances by the Vienna-based Artemis Quartet are vivid, too. They give the 12 short movements in the First Quartet a momentum that suggests it is the most impressive of what Ligeti has called his "prehistoric" works. They are also alert to the detail in the Second, with its parade of the techniques Ligeti acquired, and almost surreal juxtapositions of mood and texture.