Akhtamar Quartet: Origins

The Strad Issue: March 2026

Description: A great Bohemian reframed to exhilarating effect

Musicians: Akhtamar Quartet

Works: Dabić: Anzhamanak. Dvořák: String Quartet no.13

Catalogue number: CYPRES CYP1691

‘Fresh and unique experience of sound fragrances’ is promised in the booklet for this unorthodox and revealing coupling from the Akhtamar Quartet, a group bringing together French and Belgian musicians but taking its name from a sequence of Armenian pieces by Komitas, the father of that nation’s music. Jelena Dabić (born 1982) is a Serbian–German composer, setting a seal – alongside Bohemian Dvořák in his post-New World period – on a truly international album.

Anzhamanak is described as ‘a contemporary suite inspired by roots, memory and transformation’. Its fusion of Armenian and Balkan folk styles with the vocabulary of the contemporary string quartet is an effective one. It opens with a solo cello threnody tinted with microtones and pitch-bends, and passes via keening, chant-like passages, sequences of irresistibly rhythmic dances and glowing songs to its upbeat conclusion.

Dvořák’s fusion is between the Brahmsian quartet archetype and the outdoorsy sounds and folk styles of his native land, peppered with what he learnt in America – those characteristic pentatonic melodies are never far away.

The Akhmatar responds vividly to the G major’s Quartet’s heady mix of rusticity and sophistication, relaxing into tempos but maintaining just a piquant edge of occasional roughness to its sound. The group should win many friends for Dabić’s new work, and it’s always a pleasure to hear the Dvořák played so sympathetically.

DAVID THREASHER