Riot Ensemble is a small but select shape-shifting group, dedicated to new music, on this occasion fielding a quartet of players: oboe, harpsichord, double bass and percussion.

Fans of Dutilleux will recognise the instrumentation of Les Citations, originally conceived to honour Peter Pears, and named for its quotations from Britten’s Peter Grimes and from Jehan Alain, in turn quoting Renaissance composer Janequin. Dutilleux’s characteristic finesse was realised with adroitness by the Rioters, notably in the expressive oboe-playing of Philip Haworth. Harpsichordist Gorska Isphording delivered the cadenza-like flourish of the opening of the second movement with bravura flair, Enno Senft’s bass colouring was beautifully judged, with James Leveridge bringing precision to the percussion role.

The remaining programme was devoted to companion pieces to Les Citations, of which Arlene Sierra’s elegant micro-quartet Petite Grue was a tribute to the composer, first played in his presence. Kenneth Hesketh’s arrangement of two piano pieces by Dutilleux, Mini-prélude en évantail complemented by Blackbird, whose singing lines carried airily through the instruments. Chris Roe’s Wired was a more brittle affair, with the harpsichord’s metallic quality the starting point for the piece’s edgy vibe. In complete contrast was Jose Manuel Serrano’s Cetinas de un madrigal triste, whose reference to Baudelaire’s poem from Les Fleurs du Mal itself echoes Dutilleux’s inspiration by the French symbolist in tout un monde lointain, his cello concerto. Poised as though in that half-light between night and morning, heightening consciousness of the muted textures, the music’s uneasy feel lifted only gradually, as though a ray of sun finally piercing a veil of mist. Aaron Holloway-Nahum’s introductions were genial and his conducting precise; ironic then that it should be the Dutilleux – where no direction was required – in which the quartet communicated most meaningfully with each other.