STRING QUARTETS

A small group of composers around Hendrik Andriessen played an important role in Dutch musical life of the 20th century — Andriessen himself and his pupils Jan Mul, Herman Strategier and Albert de Klerk — and they had a clear influence on music in the Netherlands and its performance by both professionals and amateurs. Vocal works for small and large ensembles form a large proportion of their works, both with and without accompaniment. They also, however, composed instrumental music and, as we hear with this recording, created chamber works.

The Matangi Quartet gave a concert of string quartets by Hendrik Andriessen, Jan Mul, Herman Strategier and Hendrik’s youngest son Louis Andriessen in January 2020. It was a particularly special occasion because it was once again apparent that the quality of the instrumental writing displayed by these composers was of the highest.

The concert, organised and presented by the Andriessen/De Klerk Foundation in Haarlem, caused this body and the Herman Strategier Foundation to consider whether these works might be recorded on CD, as such a project would fulfil their most important goals: the revelation, documentation, registration and performance of these composers’ works. An important piece of cultural heritage would also be preserved on record.

The CD contains string quartets by Hendrik Andriessen, Jan Mul, Herman Strategier and Louis Andriessen; Albert de Klerk did not write a string quartet.

The string quartet by Jan Mul was reconstructed from the autograph manuscript; the quartet by Herman Strategier was, as far as could be ascertained, performed for the first time. Our addition of the string quartet by Louis Andriessen reveals that the compositional styles of the 20th century have passed almost seamlessly into those of the 21st century.

Nico Schrama