Impressions parisiennes

They have a Dutch name, but they come from France: Quatuor Van Kuijk. In the Netherlands, the young quartet is not very well known yet, but no doubt this is about to change. Their recent albums with Mendelssohn’s complete string quartets have been showered with praise. Tonight at the Muziekgebouw, the Van Kuijk Quartet takes listeners on a captivating journey through French music. The programme features iconic 20th-century composers in dialogue with the contemporary voice of Baptiste Trotignon.

Trotignon is a jazz pianist and composer who cares little about genre boundaries – he knows his classics, but also plays songs by Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. In his new Ces messieurs (‘These gentlemen’) for the Van Kuijk, Trotignon gives a salute to France’s great impressionists, such as Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, and Erik Satie. The Van Kuijk also plays pieces by the gentlemen themselves, as found on their latest CD, Impressions Parisiennes. They top it off with Ravel’s phenomenal String Quartet in F (1903), which won the admiration of Debussy – and many others.