Silence #44: Alma Quartet
Early in the morning, the Oude Kerk is a meditative oasis in the city. Since 2017, on every first Friday of the month at 8 a.m., when the rising sun casts its light through the church’s towering windows and the neighbourhood slowly wakes up, visitors can enjoy the Silence music programme. The concerts celebrate the acoustics and space of the Oude Kerk, which invites mostly young, experimental musicians. There are no fixed seats; visitors are welcome to walk around and discover what the music sounds like in different places in the church.
The string quartet Alma Quartet played pieces by composers Henri Dutilleux, Claude Debussy, and Joseph Haydn that mark the symbolic transition from darkness to light. By Dutilleux, the string quartet played 'Ainsi la nuit', by Claude Debussy an arrangement of his famous 'Clair de lune' and Haydn's quartet titled 'Sunrise' (opus 76) - music that symbolises the transition from the darkness of occupation to the light of liberation and marks the transition from the darkness of night to the light of dawn.
