Horatiu Radulescu’s String Quartet No. 4, Op. 33, is, at least nominally, chamber music for two violinists, a violist, and a cellist, though the parts are multiplied through computer generation to sound as if there were eight virtual quartets and a ninth quartet playing in real time. Listeners may feel, however, that this electronically manipulated, densely layered work — played to stunning effect by the Arditti String Quartet on this 2003 release from Edition RZ — is better classified as electro-acoustic music, or less charitably, as an experiment in noise; but it should be regarded in any case as something other than a string quartet in the traditional sense.

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