“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
“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 […] brought out the extremely pointed style of this composer [Joseph Haydn] employing a slender tone with marvelous results.”
LUXEMBOURGER WORT, Johannes Schmidt, 31/01/2019
“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, 28/01/2019
“With rousing, sophisticated, and synchronous musicianship, the Haydn Quartet opened up in an almost playful manner. With confidence and focus (they play while standing), the four artists gave each phrase their own unique shading.”
SÜDWEST PRESSE, Susanne Eckstein, 26/4/2018
“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, 28/9/2017 - 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, 12/8/2017
“Ilya Gringolts's glowing tone and liquid grace score highly. Listen to the expressive but unaffected way he handles the little cadenza at the end of Var 5. Gringolts is never more than first among equals, however, and the Quintet's sunset coda is lovingly handled, the individual strands of the texture beautifully caught in BIS's warm, transparent sound.”
GRAMOPHONE, Richard Bratby, April 2016 - about the Taneyev-Glazunov CD
“A captivating listening experience and a first-class performance: a full and at the same time deeply focused sound allows the listener to experience the pieces as if from the heart of the action.”
RONDO MAGAZIN, Michael Wersin, 06/02/2016 – on the Taneyev-Glazunov CD
“Listen to the Gringolts Quartet in the Op.51 No.2 and Op.67 Quartets and you may conclude that they’ve simply not been played right. There’s so much sensitive give and take between the four instruments here, so much intimacy and subtle variation of colour, that the feeling is these are Romantic chamber gems comparable with Schumann’s three Quartets. In the first movement of Op.67 the shifts in rhythmic patterns are handled with the kind of supple freedom even the most refined orchestral conductor could hardly match.”
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE, Stephen Johnson, October 2014, on the Brahms-CD
“Like opening the curtains on a sunny morning, this recording throws fresh light on the familiar features of Brahms’s beguiling chamber music. The glorious Piano Quintet in F minor, Op 34, bursts with confidence, the Gringolts and Peter Laul fully conscious of its soaring, symphonic ambition.”
OBSERVER, Stephen Pritchard, 22/06/2014, on the Brahms-CD
“Gringolts and his players bring a cool, steely and achingly intense beauty to their interpretation. […] These two fascinating works are well worth getting to know: one obscure from Braunfels and the other by Strauss in an unfamiliar guise. These are deeply felt and impeccably prepared performances rendered in excellent sound: cool, clear and well balanced.”
MUSIC WEB INTERNATIONAL, Michael Cookson, 13/02/2013 on the Braunfels/Strauss-CD
“Led by the incisive Ilya Gringolts […] the Gringolts Quartet puts Schumann’s mercurial yet troubled psyche under an intense spotlight. They use every means at their disposal to draw out more disturbing elements of the quartets: the beginning of no.1 emerges as sombre as medieval plainsong, silences are full of unspoken menace. […] The more joyous moments are undimmed, with the Piano Quintet going great guns and Gringolts’s violin-playing dancing through enchantingly nuanced passagework in the finale of the Quartet no.2. […] Original, personal and beautifully played, these performances prove that there are as many facets to Schumann’s quartets as there are ensembles to play them. A different and fascinating take.”
CLASSICFM.COM, June 2012, on the Schumann-CD
“Ilya Gringolts and his friends never let the tension drop. Amplified by the acoustics of the Lutheran Church of St. Petersburg, the sound of the ensemble, led by its fiery first violinist, cannot be beat. The transparent polyphony of the first Andante espressivo, along with the clarity of the accompanying voices and the sophisticated use of tone colours, stood in direct contrast to the biting but playful scherzo, and added to the performance’s poetic appeal.”
DIAPASON, Jean Cabourg, January 2012 on the Schumann-CD
“These artists are brilliant masters of their craft. The determined moaning of the viola or cello, flanked by gently restrained violins, was full of the protagonists’ intensity and subtle phrasing.”
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, Udo Watter, 14/01/2012
