Cuarteto Casals

Program

Arriaga: Quartet #3, E-flat Major

Shostakovich: Quartet #3, F Major, Op. 73

Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130 With the “Grosse Fugue”

About Cuarteto Casals

Since winning First Prizes at the London and Brahms-Hamburg competitions, Cuarteto Casals, which was founded in 1997 at the Escuela Reina Sofía in Madrid, has been a continual guest at the world’s most prestigious concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie Berlin, Cité de la Musique Paris, Philharmonie Paris, Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Suntory Hall among many others.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the quartet released to much critical acclaim a recording of the complete ‘Art of Fugue’ by J.S. Bach and is currently undertaking a recording of all 15 quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the great cycles of the 20th Century which will be released in the fall of 2024.

With more than 27 years of experience together, the Cuarteto Casals has compiled a substantial discography with the Harmonia Mundi label featuring repertoire ranging from lesser known Spanish composers Arriaga and Toldrá to Viennese classics Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms, through 20th Century greats Debussy, Ravel, Zemlinsky, Bartok, Ligeti and Kurtag, as well as a live Blue-Ray recording of the complete Schubert quartets, for Neu Records.

A prize from the prestigious Burletti-Buitoni Trust in London enabled the quartet to begin a collection of matching Baroque and Classical period bows which it uses for works from Purcell through Schubert, refining its ability to distinguish between diverse musical styles. In addition, the quartet has been profoundly influenced by its work with living composers, especially György Kurtág, and has given the world premiere of quartets written by leading Spanish composers, including a concerto for string quartet and orchestra by Francisco Coll, premiered with the Orquesta Nacional de España and commissions by Mauricio Sotelo, Benet Casablancas, Dahoud Salim, Lucio Amanti, Aureliano Cattaneo and Matan Porat. Additionally, the quartet has performed John Adam’s ‘Absolute Jest’ with many orchestras and will perform the world premiere of Elisenda Fabregas’s ‘Fiery Earth’ in the Palau de la Música Catalana in 2025.