Gringolts Quartet

String Quartet

Contact

Kathrin Feldmann-Uhl
kf@karstenwitt.com
+49 30 214 594-241

Daniel Schumacher
ds@karstenwitt.com
+49 30 214 594 -210

General Management

IN THE MAGAZINE

In the magazine

IN CONVERSATION

Following the performance of all six Mozart string quintets at the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Ilya Gringolts explained to us what attracts him to historical instruments and why the Gringolts Quartet will continue to play on gut strings more frequently in the future.

NEW RECORDINGS

Passionate, intense, balanced, multi-faceted, intimate: the Brahms CD by the Gringolts Quartet, released in June, was chosen by BBC Music Magazine as Recording of the Month.

NEW RECORDINGS

The new CD by the Gringolts Quartet received outstanding reviews and was awarded a Diapason d'or.

more articles in the magazine

SUN 18.10.

Wettinger Kammerkonzerte
16:00
Schulhaus Margeläcker, Wettingen

FRI 27.11.

20:00
Theater Basel

SUN 06.12.

20:00
Theater Basel

Biography

Ilya Gringolts, violin
Anahit Kurtikyan, violin
Silvia Simionescu, viola
Claudius Herrmann, violoncello

There are times when a meagre star rating just doesn’t do a concert justice, and the Gringolts Quartet’s magnificent, revelatory [Edinburgh] International Festival recital was one of them. (…) It was a breathtaking achievement, both intellectually and emotionally.
The Scotsman, David Kettle, 24 August 2026

A lively, intense dialogue between eras – that is a fundamental focus for Ilya Gringolts, one of the outstanding violinists of his generation and primarius of the Gringolts Quartet. Founded in 2008, the string quartet produces a radiant ensemble sound that merges into a seamless unity while remaining highly nuanced: dense and warm, delivering a deeply expressive impact, yet mercurial, dynamic, transparent, and clear in every detail. The quartet’s interpretations demonstrate a profound musical maturity and technical mastery – one that never seeks the spotlight for its own sake, but remains invariably dedicated to the music itself.

The Zürich-based, internationally assembled ensemble with violinist Ilya Gringolts from Russia, violinist Anahit Kurtikyan from Armenia, violist Silvia Simionescu from Romania, and cellist Claudius Herrmann from Germany, has established a distinguished reputation in the world’s most prestigious concert venues and major festivals. Long before the quartet’s official formation, the four musicians were already bonded by close friendship and countless chamber music collaborations; notably, Claudius Herrmann and Anahit Kurtikyan were former members of the renowned Amati Quartet.

In recent seasons, the quartet has appeared at major festivals including Salzburg, Lucerne, Verbier, Gstaad, Edinburgh, and at the Settimane Musicali Ascona. Furthermore, the ensemble performs regularly in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, Stockholm’s Konserthuset, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, L’Auditori Barcelona, the Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao, LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, and the Società dei Concerti in Milan.

Highlights of the current season include appearances at the Salzburg Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival. To mark the centenary of György Kurtág’s birth, the quartet will combine works by the Hungarian composer with Schubert’s String Quartet in G major. The ensemble will also celebrate a premiere at the Haydneum Esterháza Festival, performing Haydn string quartets on historical gut strings at Esterházy Palace in Fertőd, Hungary. Furthermore, a new artistic partnership begins with cellist Clemens Hagen, with whom the quartet will perform Schubert’s String Quintet – also on gut strings – in Alicante, Madrid, and Bilbao, among other venues. Prior to this, the Gringolts Quartet will showcase its acclaimed Schoenberg expertise at Theater Basel and the Mizmorim Festival, presenting the composer’s complete string quartets across three concerts.

From the very beginning, the Gringolts Quartet has drawn attention with its exquisite recordings. Their first major award came in 2012, when they received an ECHO Klassik for the premiere recording of Walter Braunfels’ quintet with cellist David Geringas. In 2016, their album of Glazunov and Taneyev quintets with cellist Christian Poltéra won a Diapason d’Or. Their 2017 release on the BIS label – featuring octets by Mendelssohn and Enescu, recorded with the Meta4 quartet – was awarded the Quarterly Critics’ Choice by the German Record Critics. Also in 2017, BIS released their recording of Schoenberg’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 4, which received excellent reviews as a reference recording. Their 2022 album with Schoenberg’s Quartets Nos. 1 and 3 won them another Diapason d’Or. In 2024, BIS released their recording of Brahms’ quintets with violist Lilli Maijala, which was also very well received. In the season 2027/28, two new albums played on gut strings will be released on the Arcana label: the complete Mozart string quintets and two Dvořák string quartets.

The quartet regularly collaborates with renowned artists such as Jörg Widmann, Andreas Ottensamer, Malin Hartelius, James Boyd, Christian Poltéra, Katia Skanavi, and Alexander Lonquich. Their collaboration with the legendary American pianist Leon Fleisher (1928–2022) had a lasting impact on the ensemble. Contemporary music is just as important to the four musicians as the classical repertoire; their programmes frequently include works by Heinz Holliger, Valentin Silvestrov, György Kurtág, Marc-André Dalbavie, Jörg Widmann, and Lotta Wennäkoski.

All members of the Gringolts Quartet play on rare Italian instruments: Ilya Gringolts plays a Guarneri “del Gesù” (1743), Anahit Kurtikyan a violin by Camillo Camilli (Mantua, 1733), Silvia Simionescu a viola by Jacobus Januarius (Cremona, 1660), and Claudius Herrmann a Maggini cello (Brescia, 1600). Notably, this cello was once owned by Prince Galitzin, a great admirer of Beethoven who commissioned the composer’s late string quartets and had them performed for the very first time.

2026/27 season

This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.

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Programmes

I Centenary György Kurtág

Kurtág Hommage à Jacob Obrecht
12 Microludes, Op. 13
Officium breve, Op. 28

interwoven with

Schubert String Quartet in G major, D. 887

II Beethoven 2027

String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130/133 (with "Great Fugue")

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor, Op. 144
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130/133

III Haydn-Mozart

Haydn             String Quartet in C minor, Op. 17,4
Haydn             String Quartet in C major, Op. 54,2
Mozart            String Quartet in A major KV 464

+ CLEMENS HAGEN

Schubert String Quintet
Schubert’s only string quintet (D 956, op. post. 163), composed in September 1828, a few months before his death. Complemented with a string quartet by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (from op. 30).
Performance on gut strings.

+ LILY FRANCIS

Mozart String Quintets
Three quintets in one concert*, or all six quintets in two or three consecutive concerts. Also possible as a “Mozart marathon” in one day.
Performance on gut strings.

*for example:

String Quintet C minor, KV 406
String Quintet E flat major, KV 614
String Quintet D major, KV 593

+ LILLI MAIJALA

Brahms String Quintets

String Quintet No. 1 in F major, Op. 88
String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111

Subject to alterations. Further programmes on request.

References

“The performance by this outstanding string quartet deserves the highest praise and is among the highlights of this year’s [Edinburgh International] festival.”

Seen and Heard International, Gregor Tassie, 28 August 2026

“(…) the playing was terrific throughout, be it in Schubert’s lush romanticism [Quartet in G major, D. 887] or Kurtág’s similarly lyrical modernism, and the switchblade exhilaration of Schubert’s finale was so expertly articulated that it managed to keep us all guessing right to the end.”

The Arts Desk, Simon Thompson, 26 August 2026

“There are times when a meagre star rating just doesn’t do a concert justice, and the Gringolts Quartet’s magnificent, revelatory [Edinburgh] International Festival recital was one of them. (…) [I]n the Gringolts players’ hands, that power [of Schubert’s G major quartet] was even more pronounced: these were fiery, furious accounts (…). Interspersed between the Schubert movements, the jewel-like miniatures of Kurtág’s [works] got similarly vivid treatments that zoned in with fearsome precision on their eccentric gestures or their almost tactile textures, but also drew telling connections between the two composers (…). It was a breathtaking achievement, both intellectually and emotionally”

The Scotsman, David Kettle, 25 August 2026

“After an exalted first movement – rendered here in all its splendour – followed by an Adagio with variations, nostalgic and tinged with Magyar mood, the Allegretto adds a clearly Slavic touch that the performers treat with subtlety. As for the finale, with its rhapsodic strains, it demonstrates not only melodic invention but also supreme contrapuntal mastery, rendered here with absolute legibility.”

Classica, October 2024 – on Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111 (BIS-2727)

“In this superb recording, the Gringolts Quartet and violist Lilli Maijala do the quintets proud, with a passionate, committed account that seems to employ 360 degrees of expressive technique. There’s a wealth of characterisation within this richly unified, bronze-dark ensemble. A deep-dug, chunky tone, often quite rugged, is offset by moments of intense sweetness, as well as great delicacy and refinement. Besides being beautifully balanced and transparent, some of the softest passages acquire an ‘innigkeit’ (introspection) that can make you hold your breath. (…) Most pleasing of all is that this multifaceted, technicolour playing brings out the best in Brahms by never chasing mere effect or turning to shouty exaggeration.”

BBC Music Magazine, Jessica Duchen, 9 July 2024 – on “Brahms: String Quintets” (BIS-2727)

“Gringolts leads his quartet with impressive selflessness, deploying his ardent but tightly focused violin tone to set the outer boundaries of the ensemble sound (…). The viola player Silvia Simionescu, in particular, sounded like a kindred spirit to Gringolts, with a burnt umber tone that resembled Jonas Kaufmann’s lower register. But the Gringolts Quartet’s rhythmic drive, its translucency and its cinematic shifts from one dynamic level to another were a collective achievement; and they felt instinctive (…) a performance that lays bare the full, sublime vastness of Dvořák’s imagination.”

The Spectator, Richard Bratby, 4 September 2021

“Its spring-like mood persists in the complex organisation of its central seriousness, which alternates slow and lively episodes, before an energetic finale brings the whole piece to a close. The excellent Gringolts Quartet and violist Lilli Maijala inhabit all these moods with finesse and passion, offering exemplary cohesion and intonation.”

Classica, October 2024 – on Brahms’ String Quintet No. 1 in F major, Op. 88 (BIS-2727)

“The Gringolts Quartet play both works with absolute mastery, and it would be difficult to imagine more convincing performances. Lingering particularly in the memory is the middle section of the quasi-slow movement in the Quartet No. 1, with its radiant viola melody beautifully played by Silvia Simionescu. This is a really important release.”

BBC Music Magazine, Misha Donat, 24 June 2022 – on “Schoenberg: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 3” (BIS-2567)

“The Gringolts and their accomplice embrace the work wholeheartedly, giving it an improvisatory air, an urge and a musical acuity that give back all its liveliness to a score that Brahms wrote believing it to be his last.”

Diapason, September 2024 – on Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111 (BIS-2727)

“This collaboration between Ilya Gringolts’ Zurich-based quartet and Finland’s Meta4 gets things right. They’re alive to every mercurial mood shift, dropping to a whisper and shedding vibrato in the development’s shadier corners. (…) The playing is incendiary. (…) Trust me – buy a copy.”

The Arts Desk, Graham Rickson, 27 June 2020 – on “Enescu & Mendelssohn: Octets” (BIS-2447)

“The technical virtuosity of the Gringolts pays huge dividends for they are able to play it so accurately and with such apparent ease that what the notes describe as the ‘laborious details’ do not get in the way of an emotionally dramatic experience. (…) Very highly recommended.”

MusicWeb International, Dave Billinge, 3 June 2022 – on Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 3 (BIS-2567)

“In the slow second movement, the audience experienced the magical moment when the Ensemble layered the slow sequences on top of each other with calmness and abandonment. It was as if I was watching a clockmaker who carefully assembles a clock with tweezers and love. In the concert hall, there was transcendence and quietness while the musicians let the end of the movement slowly fall into silence, note by note.”

Bachtrack, Stefan Pillhofer, 11 July 2020 – on “Enescu & Mendelssohn: Octets” (BIS-2447)

“The Gringolts Quartet lent Haydn’s work a very refined and yet powerful dynamic, with differentiations notable even in the extremes. The four musicians produced a very transparent sound. (…) In the extremely rapid final movement,the musicians set off highly virtuoso fireworks.”

BNN, Karl-Heinz Fischer, 28 January 2019

“There hasn’t been such a persuasive case for Schoenberg’s music for years, making this CD my new reference recording.”

Klassik heute, Martin Blaumeiser, 28 September 2017 – on “Schoenberg: String Quartets Nos. 2 & 4” (BIS-2267)

“Beautifully integrated sound; immaculate execution of impeccable, mature interpretations, charismatic on-stage and, above all: they are purely about the music. Striking a fine balance of profundity and humour for both Haydn and Brahms, they left their audience enraptured or tittering in all the right places. They convincingly adapted their sound to be classically vibrato-free for one then full-fat Romantic for the other.”

Herald Scotland, Svend McEwan-Brown, 12 August 2017