Dudok Quartet Amsterdam

The Dudok Quartet, which has received several international awards over the course of its career, has existed since 2009 and is named after Willem Dudok. As a “building artist”, this 20th century Dutch architect in particular owed great inspiration to composers.

The four are initially dedicated to Mozart's First Prussian Quartet from 1789. The composer featured Friedrich Wilhelm II, a nephew and successor of Frederick the Great, as a passionate cellist and dedicated it to him.

This is followed by a short quartet piece by Gabrieal Ortiz, created in 2006 on the occasion of Mozart's 250th birthday. It processes fragments of the quartet heard earlier. She was also inspired by a work by visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra called “All the Petals from Jan Brueghel the Elder's Sense of Smell, 1618, 2002”, which is based on his painting “The Sense of Smell.” The latter “depicts a garden in which a female figure inhales the scent of a large bouquet of flowers.”

Schubert's famous late string quartet from 1824, nicknamed “Death and the Maiden,” uses a motif dating back to the Renaissance and, beyond this connection, is also one of the most moving string quartets purely musically.

Program: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet in D major K. 575; Gabriela Ortiz: “Aroma Foliado” for string quartet; Franz Schubert: String Quartet in D minor D 810 (“Death and the Maiden”)