Tracklist
1. String Quartet No. 1: I. Shock (Allegro agitato)
2. String Quartet No. 1: II. Denial (Largo Tranquillo, Furioso Doloroso)
3. String Quartet No. 1: III. I Should Have (Lento, Andante Semplice, Deciso con fuoco)
4. String Quartet No. 1: IV. There Will Come Soft Rains (Grave)
5. “There Will Come Soft Rains” (Poem by Sara Teasdale)
6. Distant Light (for treble voices, on a poem by Elea Bekkers)
Credits
Music Sem Hak
Performed by Flare Quartet (1-4), Eddie Fox (5), Veronika Akhmetchina, Marleen van Os, Channe Visscher, Viktoria Nikolova, Sylvia Boone, Hansje van Welbergen, Elea Bekkers (6)
Arrangement Hansje Welbergen (6)
Recording Sem Hak
Recorded at De Muzen, Veenendaal (1-4), De Waterspiegel, Amsterdam (6)
Mixing Ernst Coutinho (1-4), Sem Hak (5, 6)
Mastering Ernst Coutinho
Artwork and photography Sem Hak
Special thanks to Clemens Rosmulder, Muziekschool de Muzen, my dear parents and friends for their unwavering support and love and care.
Echoes
It is not uncommon for classical composers to see their work revived years or even centuries later. As a relatively young (and alive) composer, I was still surprised when Maartje Rosmulder of the Flare Quartet approached me about performing my first string quartet – written nearly eight years earlier. Like much new classical music, it had premiered and then disappeared into a drawer.
The piece, however, never left me. I wrote it as a cathartic response to a difficult period, and when I was approached in 2024, I felt both excitement and hesitation. I knew I wanted to revise it, but that meant reopening something I had long since closed. Having grown significantly as a composer since then, the process became one of careful refinement: strengthening details, extending ideas, and applying techniques I had developed over the years. Its core character, though, remained unchanged. I decided to leave the overwhelming majority of the piece intact.
The revival did not stop at a single performance. The Flare Quartet included the work in multiple programs, with performances at the Singer Laren and TivoliVredenburg, among others, and a performance scheduled at the Grachtenfestival Amsterdam.
The idea for an album emerged in 2025, when I decided to record the quartet with them. Although a single 20-minute work could stand alone, I was reminded of my earlier vocal piece Distant Light (2017), set to a text by Elea Bekkers and recorded with singers from NKK NXT, the talent development programme of the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Gradually, the idea took shape to release an album of these older works – music rooted in past emotions that continue to resonate in the present.