Composer: Carlo Gesualdo, Guillaume de Machaut, Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen, magnus magister Perotinus, Steve Reich, Joey Roukens
Performer: Dudok Quartet Amsterdam
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Rubicon
Catalogue: RCD1110
Release: 2023
Size: 1.2 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Roukens: String Quartet No. 4 ‘What Remains’
01. I. Strange Oscillations
02. II. Motectum
03. Perotinus: Viderunt omnes
Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame
04. Kyrie
05. Gesualdo: Deh, come invan sospiro
Reich: Different Trains
06. I. America – Before the War
07. II. Europe – During the War
08. III. After the War
Messiaen: Fête des belles eaux
09. VI. Oraison
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 Quartet, 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 Fourth String Quartet by Roukens, commissioned by the Dudok Quartet. Both Reich and Roukens’s 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.