Quatuor Van Kuijk
“A quartet to watch,” the Quatuor Van Kuijk is a relative newcomer to the American music scene but is turning heads in a crowded field. “Style, energy and a sense of risk. These four young Frenchmen made the music smile” (The Guardian).
Making their version of a musical tasting menu, the Van Kuijks combine an international bouquet of flavors, starting with one of Mozart’s most unusual pieces: the first movement of his Dissonance Quartet, named for its radical departure from harmonic convention. So daring in its conception and piquant in its effect, the Mozart sounds strikingly modern, even in a program featuring 20th-century works by Bartók and Shostakovich. To add body and contrast to this procession, the Van Kuijks include probing Romanticism by Beethoven and Brahms, as well as zesty pizzicato by Debussy. Doleful, folk-inspired melodies by Smetana and Dvořák round out this musical feast with the soulful sounds of rural Bohemia.
