Dudok Quartet

The title What Remains of String Quartet No. 4 (2019) by Joey Roukens can be understood in various ways. On a poetic level, the words correspond to the character of the music, which often seems to hark back to ‘something remaining’ from a previous era – ruins, ghosts, scraps or memories. This interpretation, both of the words and of the music itself, marked the beginning of the associative exploration that led to this album of the same title. A fascinatingly curated programme from the Dudok, drawing on music from the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries, with 20th century works by Messiaen and Reich, and into the 21st century with the work that provides the album’s title, the 4th String Quartet by Roukens, commissioned by the Dudok Quartet. Both Reich and Roukens’ music was influenced by Gregorian chant, and the early organum and polyphonic music that followed. Time, travel, locomotion – journeys through time and the memories of these journeys all come together on this thrilling new album from the Dudok Quartet, Amsterdam.

Fresh from their latest accolade as winners of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, the critically lauded Dudok Quartet Amsterdam embarks on a new project for Resonus Classics recording Franz Joseph Haydn’s six Op. 20 string quartets. This first installment of two volumes sees the quartet explore the C major, G minor and F minor quartets. With some of the most celebrated works from the quartet repertoire, the Dudok Quartet relish delving into the monumental and dramatic gestures within Haydn’s highly developed rhetorical style.