In a challenging and thought-provoking new album, the Dudoks couple two composers who famously masked their true feelings in their music. Shostakovich’s famous ambiguities are present in his Fifth Quartet of 1951, composed at the same time as the First Violin Concerto and the Tenth Symphony.

Bacewicz’s Fourth Quartet, written shortly after the oppression of the Poles in the late 1940s by the Soviet regime, is full of folk music influences (Bacewicz had a keen interest in traditional music which spared her from any aggravation from the Polish puppet regime), and was therefore ‘acceptable’ to the authorities. But she also erects a hall of mirrors around the work to mask her true emotions. Is this happy music? Is it masking something darker? That the composer was a fine violinist is clearly apparent in the Fourth Quartet, which did much to establish her reputation.

“As a string quartet of the 21st century, we are searching for the meaning of the music we perform. Our goal is to convey the image which emanates from the music in the most authentic way. As a kind of time-transcending minstrel, the Quartet is continuously searching for the best ways to reflect the music from the past, with a new meaning and for a contemporary audience” - Dudok Quartet, Amsterdam