adapted from the press release by Ben Hogwood

TERRA MEMORIA
Kaija Saariaho String Quartet
Shostakovich String Quartet No 3 in F, Op. 73
plus a selection from 24 Preludes Op 34
Rubicon Classics RCD1218  Release date: 31 October 2025

“I feel when writing for a string quartet that I’m entering into the intimate core of musical communication.”
Kaija Saariaho 

Following two highly acclaimed composer-led volumes of Tchaikovsky’s string quartets last year, Dudok Quartet Amsterdam returns to another of its signature concept albums with a mix of thought-provoking repertoire.  Terra Memoria is the Quartet’s sixth album on the Rubicon Classics label and features Shostakovich’s third string quartet, from 1946, paired with Kaija Saariaho’s second String Quartet Terra Memoria from 2007. It is something of a partner to their 2022 album, Reflections, which paired Shostakovich’s String Quartet No 5 Op 92 with Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No 4and also featured other of the Quartet’s transcriptions of Shostakovich’s Preludes Op 34.
 
As a result of the Dudok Quartet’s inimitable and deeply inquisitive approach to understanding and expressing what they discover in these scores, they find that although Shostakovich and Saariaho are very different in their compositional approach, the outcome is similar; both possess unmistakeable musical signatures which empower their communication of imagination and emotion to performers and listeners alike.
 
Initially, Shostakovich gave titles to the five movements of his quartet No. 3, referencing a range of feelings and responses to the threat and ultimately the destruction and desolation of war.  If these titles intended any kind of narrative or explanation, the composer gave no reason for soon withdrawing them and, as Dudok violinist Judith van Driel explains, the force of the music cancels out any need for words; “Playing or listening to the third movement [for example] gives an infinitely more accurate meaning, by making adrenaline rush through your body causing your ears to ring from an unrelenting pounding. Its meaning is manifest in your sense of terror, fear and anger, whether or not you have ever experienced war up close.”
 
Throughout the quartet Shostakovich uses various compositional techniques to provoke immediate and reactive personal responses that are sometimes ambiguous and sometimes at odds – yet co-existing with each other. From the pastoral opening to the meandering melody searching for meaning in the fifth movement, it is the music that elicits inexplicable – in the most literal sense – and instinctive feelings.
 
Saariaho expressed a love for the richness and sensitivity of the string quartet sound, although she only composed two works in the genre. The second, Terra Memoria, captivated the Dudoks from the outset when they worked on it with her in 2011 (they were enchanted further by her music when they  collaborated in the world premiere of her penultimate opera, Only the Sound Remains, in 2016). Saariaho references the work as being ‘for those departed’, those whose lives are over, with nothing to be added, while those left behind are haunted by dreams and memories and find that the shape of remembrance can change as time passes.
 
But this explanation is only a starting point for the listener or player to make personal associations through experience of the composer’s sound world. Familiarising itself with her unique musical vocabulary was an absorbing and rewarding journey for the Dudok Quartet as they encountered a variety of unusual playing techniques and inventive musical mutations that include experimental threads of electronic music, minimalist-type repetition and operatic styles. For them, Saariaho’s music evokes a kind of intermediate zone between the known and the unknown, the living and the dead.
 
The Dudok Quartet is also known for its own transcriptions of works not originally composed for string quartet and rounds off the album with a selection from Shostakovich’s Preludes Op. 34 written for piano, all of them tiny gems which elicit personal stories and associations in the listener and player.

“We aim to show that music affects people; that music can lead us to profundity and connection especially when it provokes friction. The true meaning of music reveals itself in a shared experience in which you, as a listener, play a vital role.”
Dudok Quartet Amsterdam
 
The Dudok regularly performs in the UK and will feature Saariaho’s Terra Memoria in recital with Schubert’s Death and the Maiden in Portsmouth, Sheffield, Macclesfield and Hastings in November 2025, and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No 3 on tour in early 2026 – to the US in January and Scotland in February. Click here for further information.
 
Terra Memoria
Dudok Quartet Amsterdam 
Rubicon Classics RCD1218   Release date: 31 October 2025
 
Dmitri Shostakovich – String Quartet No. 3 in F, Op. 73 (1946)
I. Allegretto
II. Moderato con moto
III. Allegro non troppo
IV. Adagio (attacca)
V. Moderato
 
Kaija Saariaho – Terra Memoria (2007) for String Quartet
Shostakovich – 24 Preludes, Op. 34
No. 1 in C major – Moderato
No. 2 in A minor – Allegretto
No. 4 in E minor – Moderato
No. 6 in B minor – Allegretto
No. 12 in G sharp minor – Allegro non troppo
No. 22 in G minor – Adagio
 
DUDOK QUARTET AMSTERDAM 
dudokquartet.com

Published post no.2,668 – Thursday 25 September 2025