NOTOS QUARTETT

NOTOS QUARTETT
One of the finest chamber music performances I have heard anywhere.” (Robert Markow, Classical Voice North America)
“The Notos Quartet is esteemed as one of the preeminent chamber music ensembles of our time” (FONO FORUM 09/2017)

Audiences and critics alike have lauded the Notos Quartet for its “virtuosic brilliance and technical perfection,” as well as its “sense of balance and interplay,” which make every detail of the composition audible”, allowing them to “reach the listener’s heart with its intimately played notes.”
Since its inception in 2007, the four musicians have garnered six first and many special prizes at international competitions in Holland, Italy, England and China, establishing themselves on a global stage. The quartet performs in renowned European concert halls such as the Philharmonie Cologne, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Konzerthaus Vienna, the Wigmore Hall London, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Tonhalle Zurich, the BOZAR Brussels, the Teatro la Fenice Venice, as well as at majör festivals in Rheingau, Schwetzingen, Würzburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lockenhaus, Usedom and Montpellier Radio France. Their performances also take them to distant destinations such as Australia, the USA, China, Japan, South Africa and Southeast Asia. In 2022, the Notos Quartet was honored with the Jeunesses Musicales’ prestigious Würth Prize.

In addition to interpreting the well-known masterpieces, the quartet regularly commissions and premieres new piano quartets. New works dedicated to the Notos Quartet by composers such as Beat Furrer, Bernhard Gander, Garth Knox and Bryce Dessner underscore the ensemble’s commitment to contemporary music. The musicians’ equal dedication to lost and forgotten works of the piano quartet genre and their commitment to presenting these to a wider audience is reflected in their CD recordings.

Their debut CD “Hungarian Treasures”, released by Sony Classical/RCA in February 2017, includes the world premiere recording of Béla Bartók’s piano quartet and was met with worldwide praise. The second album, “Brahms – The Schönberg Effect”, released again by SONY Classical, is dedicated entirely to Johannes Brahms and combines his famous Piano Quartet in g minor with a transcription of his 3rd Symphony, arranged especially for the Notos Quartet by Andreas N. Tarkmann.

In their latest album “Paris Bar,” released on March 25, 2022, the Notos Quartet unveils yet another world premiere recording: the piano quartet by Hungarian composer László Lajtha. Lajtha, often mentioned alongside Bartók and Kodály as one of the “les trois grands hongrois” (the three great Hungarians), regrettably did not receive the recognition he deserved due to political oppression.
The great interest in the Notos Quartet and its extraordinary programming is documented by numerous concert recordings, interviews and portraits on radio and television in Germany and abroad, such as on ARD, ZDF, Deutschlandfunk, the BBC, France Musique, ORF, NHK Japan and IPR USA.

The quartet firmly believes in taking a stand on social issues of our time. For example, the four musicians were the first artists to return the prestigious German Music Award ECHO Klassik, which had been awarded to them in the newcomer category in 2017. Their decision stemmed from the controversy surrounding the ECHO Pop Awards in April 2018, where an album promoting anti-Semitic and inhumane ideas was honored. This sparked a widespread protest movement, with prominent artists like Igor Levit, Daniel Barenboim, and Marius Müller-Westernhagen joining in. Ultimately, the ECHO brand was abolished in response to the outcry.
The artists’ social commitment is also reflected in their promotion of young musicians – another important aspect of the quartet’s work. The ensemble has held a teaching engagement at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, led the Saigon Chamber Music Masterclass in Vietnam and, in autumn 2015, initiated the Notos Chamber Music Academy, -which has taken place in Weikersheim since 2019 in collaboration with the Jeunesses Musicales Germany.

Besides Günter Pichler, the first violinist of the legendary Alban Berg Quartet, (with whom the quartet studied at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid until 2017,) the quartet’s mentors, teachers, and supporters include, among others, the Mandelring Quartet, Menahem Pressler, András Schiff, Clemens Hagen, and Uwe-Martin Haiberg.

As Pirastro artists, the Notos Quartet plays exclusively on strings from the renowned string manufacturer Pirastro GmbH.