A virtuoso violinist, so badly shocked by the First World War that he withdrew from the world altogether after the conflict, Lucien Durosoir continued to compose, for himself alone, works which have mostly never been played. Influenced by Debussy, but also by the German Romantic composers he revered before the war, his music shows great formal skilfulness but, at the same time, a degree of inspiration which is often lacking in creative artists much more famous than himself.

After a first disc devoted to his violin and piano music [alpha105], Alpha presents Durosoir's three quartets, complex and difficult works to play, in which the composer concentrated the essence of his musical language and personality.