Performed using gut strings, the Dudok Quartet’s Tchaikovsky string quartet cycle is notable for the ‘new’ sound world they reveal. There is a raw naturalness to the sound together with an intimacy that steel strings cannot match.

After completing his Third Quartet in 1876, Tchaikovsky all but abandoned chamber music, and embarked on a remarkable period of creative output which included the last three symphonies, and the majority of his operas. His only chamber works after the quartets are the piano trio and sextet of 1882 and 1890 respectively, and the string quartets date from 1865 for the incomplete B flat work, to 1876 and the final quartet which is the centrepiece of this album.

The Dudok Quartet’s arrangements of four of the solo piano works that form The Seasons rounds off this album, and the Dudok’s cycle of Tchaikovsky’s string quartets.