Mozart: String Quartets K157, K458 & K589

BBC Music Magazine Awards 2012 - Chamber WINNER

"The Jerusalem Quartet performs Mozart with an ingratiating warmth that harks back to the big-hearted playing style common until the last 20 years or so. Yet it's not old-fashioned by any measure, as the musicians combine this quality with the dynamic energy and incisiveness of modern period-style playing. Even if you don't think you like Mozart string quartets, this exceptional disc will make you think again."
(10/10 ClassicsToday Aug 2011)

"Tempos [in K157] are admirably judged and the interaction between each individual line sounds totally natural...The Jerusalem Quartet's approach, balancing full-blooded tone with exemplary contrapuntal clarity and a sure sense of structural direction, brings even greater musical dividends in the two mature quartets."
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2012 - Chamber WINNER

After two widely acclaimed Haydn releases, the Jerusalem Quartet now turns to an exploration of Mozart and three distinct periods in his creative life. Haydn is not totally absent from this recording, since the central quartet belongs to the glorious group of six which Mozart, now firmly established in Vienna, dedicated to his elder in 1785. Twelve years earlier, the teenage composer was still amusing himself with the Sammartinian model in the third of his 'Milanese' Quartets' and four years after the 'Haydn' set, Mozart abandoned the divertimento style once and for all, presenting in the second of the 'Prussian' Quartets a score that radically renewed the practice of chamber music.

The Jerusalem Quartet was founded in 1993, and began its training in Jerusalem, under the direction of the violinist Avi Abramovitch. The young quartet soon became a force to reckon with on the international scene: in 1996 it won First Prize in chamber music at the Jerusalem Academy, and in 1997 a double prize at the Graz International Competition for its performances of works by Kurtág and Bartók. From 1999 to 2001 the quartet received support from the BBC (as BBC New Generation Artists), then in 2003 it was the recipient of the first Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

The Jerusalem Quartet is now a regular guest on major European and American concert platforms. It took part in the Vancouver Recital Series, the Verbier Festival and the Robeco Summer Concert Series in Amsterdam. In 2007, it toured in Australia and Japan. It is Musica Viva's Quartet-in-Residence from 2006 until 2009 (Australia).

The Jerusalem Quartet regularly partners Mitsuko Uchida, Jessye Norman, Daniel Barenboim, Elena Bashkirova, Tabea Zimmermann, Natalia Gutman, Itamar Golan, Boris Pergamenshikov, and the Vermeer and Pražák Quartets. With harmonia mundi, the quartet has recorded works by Dvořák (with Stefan Vladar), Shostakovich, Haydn and Schubert, and has been awarded several international distinctions including a BBC Music Magazine Award for their Shostakovich with Editor's Choice and BBC Choice for their 'Death and the Maiden'. The Quartet is grateful to Daniel Barenboim who generously loans Jacqueline du Pré's 'Sergio Perresson' cello to Kyril Zlotnikov.