The String Quartet

While numerous composers looked back to some extent on the past also in the post-war decades, Matthijs Vermeulen and Ton de Leeuw were exploring innovative directions within the quartet genre. Ton de Leeuw’s first String quartet is mainly based on Schoenberg’s twelve tone techniques, but without his expressionism. His second is a reflection of De Leeuw’s travels to the far east. Matthijs Vermeulen’s only quartet seeks a part of the future in the distant past, with its ecstatic singing in intricate polyphonic textures that share much in common with the polyphony of the great Renaissance masters.