Tchaikovsky: String Quartets, Vol. 1 Dudok Quartet Amsterdam

• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893): String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11:
• 1 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11: I. Moderato e semplice 11:14
• 2 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11: II. Andante cantabile 06:52
• 3 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11: III. Scherzo. Allegro ma non tanto e con fuoco - Trio 03:53
• 4 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11: IV. Finale. Allegro giusto - Allegro vivace 09:27
• String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 22:
• 5 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 22: I. Adagio - moderato assai, quasi andantino 12:09
• 6 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 22: II. Allegro giusto 06:03
• 7 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 22: III. Andante ma non tanto 11:18
• 8 Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 22: IV. Allegro con moto 05:50
• Eugene Onegin, Op. 24:
• 9 Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Op. 24: Lensky's Aria (Arr. for String Quartet by David Faber) 05:02
• Total Runtime 01:11:48

Info for Tchaikovsky: String Quartets, Vol. 1

"There’s the Tsarist Tchaikovsky, the Soviet Tchaikovsky, the nationalist and the bourgeois Tchaikovsky, there’s the Tchaikovsky of the biographies, the Tchaikovsky of the musicologists, right up to the modern LGBT Tchaikovsky … and there’s the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam, sitting in a rehearsal room to say something that is musically sincere. Something real."

So writes Dutch writer and philosopher Maxim Februari in an essay commissioned by the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam. This text, self-published by the Dudoks and distributed among to audiences of their concerts this season, accompanies and enlightens their exploration of Tchaikovsky’s string quartets. In 2024, the Quartet will release two albums for Rubicon Classics encompassing his complete works for string quartet. The first installment is out on April 26.

Tchaikovsky was, and in so many ways still is, a cult figure whose genius and artistry has been somewhat obscured by his celebrity status and the worldwide popularity of ‘Brand Tchaikovsky’ embodied in his symphonies, operas and ballet music. So the Dudok Quartet is on a mission to reveal new meaning to these quartets, to make them both fresh and relevant to 21st century audiences.

The first String Quartet was premiered in 1871 and met with widespread popular acclaim, especially for the Andante Cantabile movement which took on a life of its own. In the following few years, the sheet music was in exceptionally high demand and there were concert performances in Berlin, Boston, Kyiv, London and Paris as well as Moscow and St Petersburg.

The second String Quartet, a few years later in 1873, was virtually written in just one sitting – ‘no other piece has poured forth from me so simply and easily’ – but is nevertheless the least known. The musing first movement, the scherzo, the anguished slow movement and the exuberant finale are reminiscent of a small chamber opera, inspiring Dudok cellist, David Faber, to arrange Lensky’s aria from Tchaikovsky’s opera Evgeny Onegin to conclude this first volume.

With every project they initiate, the Dudoks commit themselves to exploring the true nature of the music and the worlds that underpin the score. Having established their early reputation with recording projects of thought-provoking pairings and collections of mixed repertoire, they changed direction in 2017 to also include single composer studies. This Tchaikovsky set follows on from two volumes of Haydn’s string quartets and a Brahms double album. Their fascination with Tchaikovsky travels a thread back to the Russian classical music canon via their teacher Marc Danel whose Danel Quartet was the first European quartet to study in Moscow with the legendary Borodin Quartet. This is music that probes the eternal depths of the human soul – sorrow and joy, despair and hope, universal experiences that everyone recognizes.

And so, back to Februari’s essay entitled Everything changes and Tchaikovsky Changes along with it: like today’s audience in the concert hall, “the quartet has to reconcile these temporalities and eternities, give gravity to lightness and bring lightness to gravity. And all that preferably without being too pretentious. That’s quite a task .”

Dudok Quartet Amsterdam

The Dudok Quartet Amsterdam
is one of the most versatile and appealing string quartets of this time. The quartet’s aim is to share the heart of music through captivating performances and an open approach of the audience.

In June of 2013, the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam has finished their studies at the Dutch String Quartet Academy with highest distinction. In November of 2014 the Dudok Quartet was awarded the Kersjesprize, an award annually given to an ensemble of exceptional talent in the Dutch chamber music scene. The quartet furthermore received top prizes in various international string quartet competitions in Bordeaux (Concours international quatuor à cordes), Weimar (Internationaler Joseph Joachim Kammermusikwettbewerb), The Netherlands (Charles Hennen Competition/Orlando Competition) and Poland (Radom first international string quartet competition)

The members of the quartet first met in the Ricciotti Ensemble, a Dutch street symphony orchestra. The ensemble was founded in 2009. During the first two years since then, the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam studied with the Alban Berg Quartett at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. After that, they studied with Marc Danel at the Dutch String Quartet Academy. Further important artistic impulses came from Eberhard Feltz, Peter Cropper (Lindsay Quartet), Luc-Marie Aguera (Quatuor Ysaÿe) and Stefan Metz.

Many well-known contemporary classical composers, such as Kaija Saariaho, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Calliope Tsoupaki and Max Knigge worked with the quartet on their music. In 2014, the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam has signed for several recordings with Resonus Classics, the world’s first solely digital classical music label. Both their first two albums, combining string quartet core repertoire by Haydn and Mozart with both string quartets by György Ligeti and world premieres of the ensembles own arrangements, have been received with unanimous praise in international press reviews including an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine. 2016 saw the premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s opera Only the Sound remains, featuring the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam in a leading role accompanying the world-renowned countertenor Philippe Jaroussky.

The Dudok Quartet Amsterdam has performed with many renowned guest musicians such as recorder player Erik Bosgraaf, pianists Alexei Lubimov, Hannes Minnaar, Ralph van Raat and Daria van den Bercken, and cellists Pieter Wispelwey, Dmitri Ferschtman and Quirine Viersen. The Dudok Quartet Amsterdam performed at many prestigious festivals and venues throughout Europe and in the United States of America, such as the Grachten Festival, the Orlando Festival, Festival Quatuors à Bordeaux and Festival Jeunes Talents (France), Carinthischer Sommer and the Vienna Konzerthaus (Austria), Haydn Festival Fertöd (Hungary), Davos Festival (Switzerland), the Linari Classic Festival (Italy) and the Léon Chamber Music Festival and Festival Música en Segura (Spain), Winter Chamber Music Festival (Il, USA)

Willem Marinus Dudok (1884 – 1974) was a famous Dutch architect. He was also a great lover of music: he came from a musical family and composed music in his spare time. “I owe more to composers than I owe to any architect”, he wrote. “I feel deeply the common core of music and architecture: after all, they both derive their value from the right proportions.”

Booklet for Tchaikovsky: String Quartets, Vol. 1