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

FRI 12.06.

19:30
Fraumünster Zürich

THU 06.08.

19:30
Mozarteum, Salzburg

MON 24.08.

11:00
The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

Biography

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

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. BBC Music Magazine, Jessica Duchen, July 2024

A lively, intense dialogue between the eras - that is a fundamental concern of Ilya Gringolts, one of the outstanding violinists of his generation and primarius of the Gringolts Quartet. Founded in 2008, the string quartet stands for a luminous, unified and at the same time extremely differentiated ensemble sound: glowing, dense, warmly shining like bronze and gold, with maximum expressive effect, then again mercurially agile and dynamic, transparent and audible down to the smallest detail. The Gringolts Quartet's interpretations are characterised by great musical maturity and impressive technical superiority, which is never superficial but always at the service of the music.

The Zürich-based, internationally assembled ensemble - Ilya Gringolts has Russian roots; 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 international festivals. The four musicians had been bonded by friendship and numerous chamber-music encounters long before the quartet’s formation, having played together in various configurations; Claudius Herrmann and Anahit Kurtikyan were at one time members of the renowned Amati Quartet.

In recent seasons, the quartet has performed at the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne, Verbier, Gstaad and Edinburgh International Festival, at the Settimane Musicali Ascona, and regularly performs in prestigious concert halls such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wigmore Hall London, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Stockholm’s Konserthuset, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, L’Auditori Barcelona, Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao, Lugano Musica, and the Società dei Concerti in Milan.

Highlights of this season include a renewed invitation to the Philharmonie Luxembourg, a tour across Sweden, as well as performances once again at the international Mizmorim Chamber Music Festival in Basel. The quartet is also regularly heard in quintet and sextet formations – in this season for example with viola player Lilli Maijala and Brahms’s Quintets at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, or by invitation of the Associazione Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples, where they will perform Mozart’s Quintet on gut strings together with violist Lily Francis. For the renowned label Arcana/Outhere, there will be two new recordings specifically on gut strings in 2026: both all of Mozart’s String Quintets and two Dvořák String Quartets.

From the very beginning, the Gringolts Quartet drew attention with exquisite CD recordings. The series of awards began in 2012 with the ECHO Klassik for the first recording of Walter Braunfels' quintets together with cellist David Geringas. The recording of Glazunov and Taneyev’s quintets with cellist Christian Poltéra won the Diapason d’Or in 2016. The 2017 BIS release with the finnish String Quartet Meta4, featuring octets by Mendelssohn and Enescu, was awarded the Quarterly Critics’ Prize of German Record Critics. The Gringolts Quartet is also known for outstanding Schoenberg expertise: in 2017, BIS released a recording of his String Quartets Nos. 2 and 4 that the press hailed as a “reference recording.” The second volume, released in 2022, featuring Schoenberg’s Quartets Nos. 1 and 3, was awarded a Diapason d’Or. The 2024 BIS release of Brahms’s Quintets with Lilli Maijala received enthusiastic reviews.

The quartet maintains musical partnerships with renowned artists such as Jörg Widmann, Andreas Ottensamer, Malin Hatelius, James Boyd, Christian Poltéra, Katia Skanavi and Alexander Lonquich. The musical encounter with the American pianist Leon Fleisher (1928 - 2022) has enriched the quartet in a lasting way. Just as important to the four musicians as the classical repertoire is the performance of contemporary music, including works by Heinz Holliger, Valentyn 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 Stradivarius ‘ex-Prové’, Cremona 1719, Cremona 1742-43 from private ownership, Anahit Kurtikyan a Camillo Camilli violin, Mantua 1733, Silvia Simionescu a Jacobus Januarius viola, Cremona 1660 and Claudius Herrmann a Maggini cello, Brescia 1600. By the way, on this instrument Prince Golizyn once played, a great admirer of Beethoven, as the first performer of the late string quartets he commissioned from the composer.

2025/26 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

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 f major, op 111

"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 the CD with String Quintets by Brahms, 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 Dvorak’s imagination.”

The Spectator, Richard Bratby, 4 September 2021 - on Dvoraks String Quartet No. 13, Op. 106

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 quintett No.1 in f major, op 88

"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 Juin 2022 - on Schönberg's String Quartet No. 1 in D minor Op. 7 and String Quartet No. 3 Op. 30

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 quintett No.2 in g major, op. 111

“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 the CD with octets by Mendelssohn and Enescu with Meta4, 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, 03 Juin 2022 - on Schönberg's String Quartet No.3 Op.30

“An outstanding coupling.”

THE STRAD, Julian Haylock, 26 March 2020 - on the CD with octets by Mendelssohn and Enescu with Meta4, BIS-2447

“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 the CD with octets by Mendelssohn and Enescu with Meta4, 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 the Schönberg CD

“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