Saved events

Dudok Quartet: Abandoned Voices

The Dudok Quartet playing their instruments. They are positioned in a close huddle, each person facing a different direction. They are against a cream coloured background.

Alongside something hot off the press, death, despair, and eternity stalk the Dudoks’ typically ear-opening programme in which Messiaen tempers the anguished ardour of Gesualdo and Schubert.

Premiered earlier this year, Bushra El-Turk’s new work celebrates singers from the Arab Cultural Renaissance. It resonates with Gesualdo’s tortured madrigal, and Schubert’s searing quartet references one of his most harrowing songs. Comfort is at hand, however. Originally conceived for the ondes martenot; repurposed in the Quartet for the End of Time, Messiaen’s Oraison contemplates the eternal.

Championing the new, cherishing the old is all in a day’s work for the multi-prize-winning, Amsterdam-based quartet. From Machaut and Pérotin to John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, its repertoire is ear-opening. Not that the ‘canon’ is elbowed aside. Gramophone relished the Quartet’s Haydn for its ‘virtuosity, finesse, and coursing energy’; while for the Irish Times, the Dudoks’ artistry is ‘revelatory’, adding up to ‘a kind of musical spring clean’.

This concert will end at approximately 9.15pm with a 20 minute interval. 

Produced by the Barbican

Become a Patron

Our Patrons get access to tickets for sold-out performances, among other benefits.

Milton Court Concert Hall