Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mendelssohn: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 2 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mendelssohn: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 2 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:22:57 minutes | 1,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

After the first volume, which was highly praised by the press and was awarded an Editor’s Choice by Gramophone, among others, the Quatuor Van Kuijk concludes its complete recording of Mendelssohn’s string quartets with op. 44 Nos. 2 and 3 as well as the quartet op. 80. The latter is under the impression of the sudden death of his sister Fanny, who died in 1847 at the age of only 42 and to whom he was very close. As Stéphane Goldet writes in the booklet: The Act of Resistance that the Quartet op. 80, which arose in a single eruption in the summer of 1847 and whose overwhelming “No, not that, not you!” the last completed work of the composer was to be shouted by four instruments for 25 minutes. The four movements of this “Confrontation with Grief” (Bernard Fournier) in F minor are to be played con dolore, although this designation never appears in the score. In addition, Brigitte François-Sappey is quoted as saying: “This ‘Requiem for Fanny’ could also be called ‘Death and the Young Woman’. As in Schubert’s last two quartets, the strings in tremolos shake over ostinate organ points, like deathbells.

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Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mendelssohn Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mendelssohn Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:22:27 minutes | 1,55 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

The Quatuor Van Kuijk celebrates the tenth anniversary of its creation and its sixth recording for Alpha with a complete set of Mendelssohn’s quartets, of which this is the first volume: it opens with the Quartet op.13, composed in 1827, when he was only eighteen years old. ‘A trial run? No, a masterstroke! In every movement of this first quartet, we are constantly aware that the sense of urgency is the blood that runs through its veins. Never before have we heard such tension maintained over an entire quartet’, writes Stéphane Goldet in the album’s booklet notes.

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Quatuor Van Kuijk, Alphonse Cemin, Kate Lindsey – Debussy, Ravel & Chausson: Chamber Works (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Quatuor Van Kuijk, Alphonse Cemin, Kate Lindsey – Debussy, Ravel & Chausson: Chamber Works (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:58 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

The first album of the quartet founded by Nicolas Van Kuijk, a programme of Mozart, was awarded a ‘Choc de Classica’ and ‘Diapason Découverte’. Now they return to their roots with key works from the French repertory: the single quartets of Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy and the Chanson perpétuelle of Ernest Chausson, in which they are accompanied by the mezzosoprano Kate Lindsey, who recently joined Alpha, and the pianist Alphonse Cemin, also well-known on the label.

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Quatuor Van Kuijk & Adrien La Marca – String Quintets K. 515 & 516 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Quatuor Van Kuijk & Adrien La Marca – String Quintets K. 515 & 516 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:04 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

As in its Schubert recording in 2018, the Quatuor van Kuijk likes to delve into a composer’s youthful output and then measure his evolution by confronting it with his mature works. Hence, after recording two of Mozart’s early string quartets in 2016, the French group, here joined by violist Adrien La Marca, now offers the String Quintets K. 515 and K. 516. These two large-scale works dominate Mozart’s instrumental output in the year 1787, which ended with the premiere of Don Giovanni. They show us a composer at the height of his creative powers, in a genre to which he had not returned for fourteen years and which he herebrought to a high degree of formal perfection.

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Quatuor Van Kuijk – Schubert: Quartets Nos. 10, 14 “Death and the Maiden” (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Quatuor Van Kuijk – Schubert: Quartets Nos. 10, 14 “Death and the Maiden” (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 59:12 minutes | 1,95 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

‘When we approach a composer, we like to immerse ourselves in his or her early works, in order to understand the evolution of the person behind the score.

‘It was quite naturally that the idea emerged of coupling a youthful quartet, no.10, composed at the age of sixteen, with a masterpiece by the mature Schubert, the “Death and the Maiden” Quartet no.14. As in the case of Mozart on our first recording, we wanted to present two different atmospheres with two quartets by the same composer.

‘This journey through time sheds a new light on the later works, because the process of getting to know the young Franz Schubert naturally means deepening our knowledge of his language, but also allows us to refine our appropriation of the style, sound and articulation specific to him. ‘In Quartet no.10, we tried to achieve purity in our playing, a crystalline sound that allows the music to unfold in the most fluid and natural way, keeping in mind the intimacy of the family living room for which these pages were written.

‘In no.14, more tormented, brusquer, more intense, we attempt to pay homage to the work’s symphonic dimension, and to its most sombre, most violent asperities. ‘Two sides to one man: the bright and dark faces of Schubert.’

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Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mozart: String Quartets Nos. 16 and 19 & Divertimento, K. 136 (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mozart: String Quartets Nos. 16 and 19 & Divertimento, K. 136 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:57 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha

Shortly after he arrived in Vienna in 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began composing his six “Haydn” Quartets, inspired by recent contact with his new friend, Franz Joseph Haydn. Not only had Haydn composed an important set of string quartets in 1781, which Mozart studied closely, he also played violin in a quartet with Mozart as violist. These influences led Mozart to compose his String Quartet No. 16 in E flat major, K. 428, and his String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K. 465, “Dissonant,” which bookend the Divertimento in D major, K. 136, on this 2016 release from Alpha Classics. The Quatuor Van Kuijk, a French string quartet in spite of its Dutch name, deliver exciting and engaging performances of the string quartets, finding the right blend of flashiness and warmth that characterize Mozart’s newfound maturity. Yet the youthful Divertimento is treated with comparable brilliance, if slightly less ardor, and all three works make a delightful program, showing important aspects of the development of the Classical style. The recordings are focused and detailed, though the acoustics of Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo create an aural halo that at times softens the Quatuor Van Kuijk’s edge.

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Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mozart: Quartets K.387, K.421 & Divertimento K.138 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Quatuor Van Kuijk – Mozart: Quartets K.387, K.421 & Divertimento K.138 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:22 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

After a first disc devoted to Mozart quartets (awarded a ‘Choc de Classica’ and a ‘Diapason Découverte’), a second to French music (Debussy, Ravel and Chausson) and a third to two quartets by Schubert, nos.10 and 14 (the mythical Death and the Maiden), the group founded by Nicolas Van Kuijk returns to its first love by recording more Mozart.

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