Several listers mentioned the Arditti Quartet. I had the great fortune to encounter, in Building 19 of all places, a copy of the Arditti's eponymous CD featuring an assortment of selections by Nancarrow, Xenakis, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Roger Reynolds, and (thrown in for good measure as "proto-modernity") LvB's Grosse Fugue. Amazing technique and performances, of course; just to attempt to pull off a Nancarrow piece just about says it all, the cross rhythms being too much for mere mortals other than player pianos. I espeiaclly liked the Seeger quartet; she solved a number of compositional problems years ahead of many better-known post-Schoenberg composers, and produced a marvelous piece in the process. It was said, by the way, that Elliott Carter intended for his fourth quartet to be his last, until he heard the Arditti performing his work, whereupon he decided to write a 5th quartet just for them. (Too bad it seems impossible to find all 5 Carter quartets in one collection somewhere.) On the topic of the Kronos quartet, I enjoyed their interpretation of "Purple Haze". I believe the other Hendrix work they tackled was "Foxy Lady", which was considerably less successful - largely because the original "Purple Haze" happens to be a wonderfully constructed piece of music centered on a three-note rhythmic and harmonic concept; but "Foxy Lady" is nothing more than a simple riff with a song built around it. But I guess it took Kronos to demonstrate it. Steve Bacher