Press quotes

The Chiaroscuro Quartet achieves the remarkable feat of making this melody actually sound fresh, with the mild sonority of a viol consort and revelations in the execution of the grace notes. Haydn with all his nuances

Thrilling in the best sense of the word.

Belgium Radio Haydn op.76 selected from the wide range of cultural and musical offerings, carefully made by the Klara staff

"Chiaroscuro effectively means light-dark, and indeed I was particularly impressed how the quartet succeed in sharpening contrasts of phrasing, tone production, dynamic and gesture. Sharp-edged and then exuberant; humorous and then tender, it always maintains a natural flow. Far from sounding like a thoroughly over-stuffed inauguration of a genre, in the hands of the Chiaroscuro Quartet, these Haydn Quartets seem as though they have just been written." | Swiss Radio SRF2 Kultur |

"...The four musicians captivate the listener with their sensitively transparent yet never bloodless sound, drawing the ear first spontaneously then ever closer. With tempi brisk but in no way rushed, they draw out nuances aplenty from these repertoire classics with no hint of forced originality. This is 21st century Haydn." | Neue Musikzeitung |

...so great are the fascination and expressive dimensions that the four string players achieve in their ensemble...the contrasts between softness, ardent strength and mosaic-like radiance...

Yet in a performance as bracingly immediate as this, the work has plenty of enjoyably Schubertian touches, whether in the Andante’s airy dance or the paprikaflavoured finale, duly relished here.

Playing to a rapt full house, this final concert of the current Wigmore season, a morning affair, proved something of a gold-plated experience...Charged and searing, ‘orchestrally’ epic, nothing remotely ‘coffee morning’ was on the table. More players should challenge us in this way... Commitment, passion, enrichment. A vitalising, remarkable voyage.

…What was most remarkable about their performances was the sense of inversion of listening experience that it offered...What was on display was, in short, a peculiar type of recreative genius...and I have never had such an immersive and finely balanced concert experience of these great works. It was the kind of playing that if you heard it in a recording you would imagine the effect to be the outcome of skill with microphones and mixers rather than an honest representation of what was played. Unforgettable.

"...there prevails a consummate unity of sound and interpretation. Robert Schumann’s assertion about the "universal language of music, which alone can be understood by everyone without translation“ could hardly be more impressively proved... For them, speech is the essence of music. They hear the significance of every single note, shape every phrase as a meaningful utterance... Thus the listener immediately felt directly addressed and enthralled, understanding without the need for more tangible or material content."

Schubert’s dance with fate in “Death and the Maiden” as played by the four musicians from Russia, Spain, Sweden and France is torturously beautiful and fascinatingly frightening. Alina Ibragimova, Pablo Hernán Benedi, Emilie Hörnlund and Claire Thirion become one music-making being, holding us in its spell from the very opening bars of the piece with strength and precision, and enabling us to see beauty within the horror. Authenticity is highly prized by this quartet. The four play in a historically-informed style with gut strings and period bows. This also contributes to their unique sound, which fits this Schubert quartet so splendidly.

Dynamic contrasts are uncommonly vivid” “an engulfing, visceral experience" "bracingly immediate

[“Death and the Maiden” can really send the shivers down your spine, at least in the hands of the young Chiaroscuro Quartet on their CD “Schubert String Quartets”. The quartet bring out the bizarre, shadowy, pallid and febrile aspects of this crowning chamber music work in their explosively expressive version, often leaving one hearkening harrowed into the abyss. After this, we are able to relax into the Chiaroscuro’s equally enthusiastically rendered early G minor quartet No.9.]

They play on gut strings, using techniques such as vibrato as conscious stylistic tools, and are well up to date with the latest developments in period performance. Their interpretation is one of constant risk-taking. The Russian/Spanish/Swedish/French ensemble has just recorded one of the giants of the quartet literature, Schubert’s string quartet in D minor D810, better known as “Death and the Maiden”. The dangerous gamble with death is a fascinating one. As listeners, we lurch with the Chiaroscuro Quartet from one precipice to the next, staring wide-eyed into the abyss. Österreichischer Rundfunk Ö1 | CD of the day |

“Death and the Maiden”: oft-recorded and now in a topnotch version by the Chiaroscuro Quartet (BIS). The foursome approach the string work with unabashed strength and drama, without a trace of melancholy or farewell. “Death where is thy sting” is the question asked here, with firm bow strokes. Exceptional sound quality too.

Schöner sterben. Die a more beautiful death. | Stuttgarter Zeitung |

Their reading of Schubert’s string quartet accentuates the captivating terror which springs from this composition. It must be said, Alina Ibragimova, Pablo Hernán Benedi, Emilie Hörnlund and Claire Thirion have succeeded in making an eerily beautiful recording. | Bremer Nachrichten |

One only has to hear a few bars to be spellbound by the distinctive sound world of the Chiaroscuro Quartet. Beginning with the early G minor string quartet, the ensemble strives for an impassioned clarity, in which radiant and pallid, tender and wild moments are thrillingly connected. […] Schubert’s music tells of the beauty in horror and the horror in beauty with an intensity that cannot be escaped, especially when played with such inner fervour and luminous transparency as by the Chiaroscuro Quartet. Bayerischer Rundfunk BR-KLASSIK

[...This is a simply stunning performance, as remarkable for its expressive power as it is for its textural clarity...It should be clear by now that no lover of chamber music can afford to be without this disc. Superbly engineered by BIS in surround sound as well as vitally absorbing stereo, it’s an outstanding addition not only to the Chiaroscuro Quartet’s steadily expanding discography but to the catalogue as a whole.]

[...it’s not easy to categorize with a certain approach or performance tradition of this frequently recorded work. Yes, there is the period instruments usage, but there is also a pure musical statement that’s impressive on any form or instrument...To sum up, this is a new, different version of “Death and the Maiden”, which you will want to return to many times, along with other leading versions.]

Schubert String Quartets Nos 9 & 14 ‘Death and the Maiden’ Chiaroscuro Quartet BIS "Two Schubert string quartets, early and ‘late’, played with enormous conviction and power by this very stylish ensemble."

[…] So you’re sitting totally gobsmacked listening to the début of the Chiaroscuro Quartet in the Philharmonie. There are of course plenty of brilliant ensembles out there these days... It can’t be explained with mere “chiaroscuro“, the famous light and shade effect used in Italian painting. It’s not the sharpness of the contrasts, rather the sheer endless diversity of the ensemble sound that keeps you on the edge of your stool until the very last bar, giving you the feeling that nothing is studied, but evolving in that very moment. […]

[…] Appearing for the first time in Cologne’s Philharmonie... The Chiaroscuro Quartet took on a magic quite of its own in the closing so-called Rosamunde Quartet in A minor by Schubert, with its second movement theme borrowed from a Lied in his incidental music for the play of the same name.

"There is in their interpretations an energy, at first almost disconcerting, that turns out to be galvanizing."

'It was the interpretation of No. 5 that blind-sided me on a first listening...This is a deeply absorbing reading, and can make other interpretations seem almost trite. It’s partly the sheer timbral and dynamic range on offer: each note is given its resonance, keening dissonances fully realised, high lines lent a fine spun, fragile beauty.'

"Every unexpected twist and turn is as fresh as the day it was written"

"Immaculate and spirited" "...The playing is intense and refined, exploratory and poised. The sound is featherweight, but there is grit and substance when needed..."

“A dramatically daring reading…the dark timbres of their gut strings allowing them to find a sometimes astonishing range of dynamics and colours, and they’re never shy of seizing on any improvisatory element to Haydn’s phrasing. ”

time seems to stop, gravity suspended, that is how strong it is.

"...Memorable, too, are their fine line-drawing and acute response to the ebb and flow of harmonic tension in No 1's Affetuoso e sostenuto (repeats, as ever, imaginatively rethought), and their shaping and colouring of the paired middle movements of No 2...a reminder that sensitive gradations of piano, pianissimo and even (at the enigmatic close of No 3) ppp are among the chief strengths of these thoughtful, fine grained performances."

“Where they surpass those earlier ‘period’ performances is in the radiant refinement of their sound, and their suave sensitivity of the phrasing. One hears this immediately in easeful launch of the E flat, Op.20 No. 1, and the intimate dying fall Ibragimova imparts to the little solo leading to the second subject.”

"The Chiaroscuro Quartet lives up to its name in these imaginative, flexible accounts of the first three of Haydn’s six ‘Sun’ Quartets, introducing a wide range of dynamic nuances and strong contrasts of light and shade. With tempos, blend and balance finely judged, these are period-instrument performances of the utmost subtlety and refinement, conveyed with technical assurance in an easy-going, conversational manner and captured in exemplary fashion by BIS’s recording team."

"these performances complement the marvellous invention of Haydn in their ability to make the listener hear these quartets in a fresh light"

"Das Chiaroscuro Quartet hat für das neue Album die ersten drei Sonnenquartette aufgenommen. Bereits seit elf Jahren gibt es das Quartett in der immer noch aktuellen, internationalen Besetzung...Bleibt zu hoffen, dass das Chiaroscuro Quartet die Einspielung der übrigen drei Sonnenquartette auch schon geplant hat und eine Folge-CD bald zu erwarten ist."

"Mozart (und Beethoven) aus der Wohnzimmerperspektive – was für ein Erlebnis! Das junge Streichquartett fühlt sich zwar der historischen Aufführungspraxis verpflichtet (...) bleibt aber immer authentisch, auf höchst lebendiger Entdeckungsreise und unterliegt nie der Gefahr, besserwisserische Theorie zu verkünden. Technisch ist das alles brillant, feinstens differenziert in der Tongebung und durchhörbar bis ins letzte liebevoll ausgeleuchtete Detail, natürlich und nachvollziehbar im Ausdruck. Im Chiaroscuro Quartet (...) passt einfach alles zusammen."

Hamburg. Ein Seufzer nur, ein leises Fallen. Es scheint von nirgends zu kommen und trifft doch mitten ins Herz. Von den ersten paar Tönen des Divertimento B-Dur von Mozart an will der Hörer wissen, wie es weitergehen mag. Diese Spannung wird den Abend über anhalten im Kleinen Saal der Laeisz­halle. Das Chiaroscuro Quartet hält das schönste, dringlichste Plädoyer für die Originalklangbewegung, das sich denken ließe. [...]

Ebenjener Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, der im Andante seines d-Moll Streichquartettes KV 421 zu weit gegangen ist. Absichtlich natürlich und in der Hoffnung, dass es jemand merkt und mit ihm geht. Was dem Chiaroscuro Quartet gelungen ist, vielleicht als erstem...So tief dringen die Musiker ein in den Klang des Gewebes, dass aus dem vertrauten oft auch ein fremder Mozart hervortritt, einer, der mehr weiß, als er sagt [...] Diese CD riskanter Extreme erscheint zu einer Zeit, in der es dringend nötig ist.

No shortage of drama...The delightful Intermezzo, also with an allegro interlude, displays the poise which is one of this group's strongest suits

There is no doubt that there is the sort of energy on this disc, particularly in the Mendelssohn, that is hard to find anywhere else [...] this ensemble is without a doubt a trailblazer for the authentic performance of High Classical chamber music.

The historically concerned players of Alina Ibragimova’s Chiaroscuro Quartet bring the works closer together than you might expect, handling the Mendelssohn in a way that’s more tonally austere than usual, the Mozart in a way that’s more personal and romantic. Common to both is the deep consideration to which the music has been subjected, and the players’ willingness to embrace unorthodox outcomes

A shock to the ears of the best kind

To spend an hour in their company is extraordinarily enriching...In the Chiaroscuro's collective hands, both works have an immediacy and an unflinching quality that is absolutely hypnotic

Daring, emotionally uncompromising playing from Chiaroscuro, with first violinist Alina Ibragimova taking risks with the recitative like writing, the quartet never shying away from the bold, bare sound they can produce with their gut string instruments, especially in the opening of Mozart’s D Minor quartet, which is the coupling, but it’s also the musicianship of great warmth as I hope you heard … a really intelligent piece of programming.” Andrew McGregor / BBC Radio 3

Such assuredness and golden musicality

This is an impressive debut recording, and the light and shade of the playing fully justifies the name the group has chosen for itself...It’s not often you hear period instrument playing of such consummate and seemingly effortless virtuosity.

One of the most impressive chamber recording debuts of recent years.

The Classical period specialists, who take their name from the art technique of contrasting light and dark, chose three pieces which amply demonstrated why they are acclaimed throughout Europe.

Their technique is impeccable only players of the highest calibre could risk such an exposed, unadorned approach and make it sound this good and their unanimous musical intuition makes consistent sense so that every phrase takes the space it needs and every gesture feels natural.

Their excellent ensemble skills rely much less on eye contact than is often the case in quartet playing. It seemed to be much more about listening and “feeling” the music together.

...ces quatre solistes venus d'horizons différents (une Russe, un Espagnol, une Suédoise, une Française) cumulent, à leur manière, les qualités des Diotima et des Ebène.