The Signum Quartet presents a video performance of ’With a White Kerchief He Waves’ by Vítězslava Kaprálová from its new album the earth trembled.The album features works by Kaprálová, Janáček and Leo Tolstoy.
The piece was arranged by the Signum Quartet’s violist, Xandi van Dijk. He writes:
’When arranging a lied of this nature, one of my principal concerns is that it NOT sound like an arrangement. I aim to find textures, sonorities and instrumentations which I know from the composer’s string quartet writing, and try to use these in a stylistically idiomatic way. I suppose in a way I’m trying to make a forgery of sorts, and this can be an interesting creative challenge.
’The key to this particular kind of forgery being convincing lies primarily in the choice of lied. If the nature of the accompaniment is too pianistic, then it will not translate to string writing in the way I would like it to. When I look at a lied I intend to arrange, I like to imagine that it explodes from the three staves of voice and piano to the four of a quartet score in one giant “kerfuffle”. If it doesn’t do that, it more than likely won’t be suitable.
’In the case of this Kaprálová lied, a peculiarity of her quartet writing I enjoyed utilising was her penchant for splitting melodic lines between viola and second violin. Though it is contained to one phrase in this short piece, it adds an “authentic” colouristic touch, a touch I have rarely used in other arrangements.
’Another consideration in the choice of lied is the poetic content. The Signum Quartet’s Schubert albums, for which I first started arranging lieder in this way, were conceived as concept albums, using the lieder to highlight certain characteristics of the principal pieces and to move from the dramaturgy of the earlier works to the late masterpieces.
’With our Janáček/Kaprálová album we have extended this idea, and the sense of farewells, returns and new beginnings conveyed by this lied is an integral turning point in the journey to the earth trembling.’
the earth trembled is released on Pentatone on 4 September 2026.
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