Armida Quartet

"An excellent interpretation, which brings out the variety of tones in this music with marvellous curves of movement and an intense penetration of every motif."

pizzicato, Remy Franck - on the CD "Max Reger & Johanna Senfter: Clarinet Quintets" (CAvi), November 2023

"For the performances, I have nothing but praise, especially over the range of dynamics that truly extends from ppp to fff, taking us from delicate lyricism to overwhelming majesty. The balance between the musicians is good throughout, and the virtuosity under perfect control."

BBC Music Magazine, Roger Nichols - on the CD "Franck & Martin Piano Quintets", July 2023

“Armida Quartet is at the top of its game, and has retained a freshness of approach that befits the youthful Mozart. With crisp articulation and a sophisticated use of vibrato, the players come close to an ideal synthesis of period practice and modern instrumental set-up. Thanks to the Armida’s thoughtful phrasing and transparent playing, the early quartets come across as more than merely promising. Their far from insignificant inner parts are discreetly brought out, and each movement’s individual atmosphere is unerringly caught.”

The Strad, Carlos María Solare, May 2022

“Once again, the Armida are fine guides to the less familiar early works. … The Armida respond to the many moods to be found within (this music), whether it be robust playfulness (K157’s first movement), beauty (K159’s expansive opening Andante), pulsating drive (the same work’s G minor Allegro) or impishness (K160’s closing Presto). The recorded sound is generous and enveloping, the attack unanimous and the tone full-bodied, with judicious and sparing vibrato adding colour. … The Armida are road-testing the new Urtext edition of these works, and accordingly they are painstakingly faithful to each inflection and marking. This might in other hands lead to playing that is clinical and fussy, but the confidence and accuracy they bring to their performances make this another enticing instalment in their continuing quartet cycle.”

Gramophone, David, Threasher, March 202

“Armida’s sparkling corporate intonation and textural litheness prove especially beguiling. They also judge immaculately the fine line that exists between over-inflating Mozart’s early music and making it sound lightweight. This is partly a question of precision balancing between the various lines, so that it feels as though the music is virtually inventing itself as it goes along. … Yet it is the Olympian musical resonances of the Dissonance Quartet K465 that set the seal on this deeply immersive set of performances. Here the Armida’s linear democratising [...] pays special dividends, as the ear is gently guided by the music’s shifting sonorities. There was a time when listening to Mozart‘s quartets it was difficult to avoid a sense of Dresden china clinking gently in the background – not any longer!”

BBC Music Magazine, March 2022

"With fine nuances in sound, dynamics, and articulation, the ensemble enlivens the music and its colors. ... The members of the Armida Quartet play all of this with that mixture of care and freshness that is only possible through intensive study of the works. One senses that the Mozart style has become second nature to them ... with the contrast of gently swaying melancholy in the Andante and an irresistible drive in the concluding Presto of K. 157, the recording goes a step beyond the energy level of the great Hagen recording from the 1980s and in turn sets new standards."

Fono Forum, Marcus Stäbler, March 2022 - on the CD "Mozart String Quartets" Vol. 4

"The latest instalment in the Armida’s ongoing Mozart quartet series is a triumph, both musically and technically. Encapsulating the best of all worlds, the Armida play with the exquisite nuancing of the finest oldschool outfits, yet with a take-nothing-for-granted interpretative inquisitiveness that takes historically informed practice to a whole new level."

BBC Classical Music Magazine, Julian Haylock, March 2021 - on the CD "Mozart String Quartets" Vol. 3

"A musically enchanting technically exemplary interpretation of six Mozart quartets from different creative periods. Exactly how Mozart should sound in the 21st Century!"

klassik-heute, Thomas Baack, Januar 2021 - on the CD "Mozart String Quartets" Vol. 3

"Never before has the subtlety of Mozart’s tonal language struck me in this way; never before have I had such a colourful and surprisingly nuanced encounter with Mozart’s Quartettsatz. Everything is interpreted by this quartet so freshly and with such a natural effortlessness in this nimble, pithy, focussed rendition which thrills throughout that it almost seems as though Johanna Staemmler and Martin Funda (Violins), Teresa Schwamm (Viola) and Peter Philipp Staemmler (Violoncello) were weaned on Mozart. 
Mozart interpretation and quartet playing at its finest hour."

klassik-heute, Christof Jetzschke, November 2019 - on the CD "Mozart String Quartets" Vol. 2

"Throughout the programme, the Armida performed with the excellent reputation that precedes them with an interpretation close to perfection and with a contrasted reading from start to finish - their pianissimi takes ones breath away."

Diario ABC, Pep Gorgori, November 2019

And what a climactic performance this Beethoven is; hardly tamed in its rawness, its barely tonal confusion of voices carrying a slender, Classical beauty of thought which has the effect of linking it right back to everything that has gone before. It´s wonderful stuff. Truly one to both savour and admire.“ 

Gramophone, Charlotte Gardner, October 2018 - on the CD "Fuga Magna"