Chiaroscuro Quartet Releases New SACD of Beethoven String Quartets
The ensemble features violinists Alina Ibragimova and Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux alongside violist Emilie Hörnlund and cellist Claire Thirion.
The Chiaroscuro Quartet continues its journey through Beethoven's string quartets with a new SACD featuring three works that chart the composer's development in the genre. The recording, released 16 October 2026 on BIS-2728 SACD, features the quartet's violinists Alina Ibragimova and Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux, violist Emilie Hörnlund, and cellist Claire Thirion.
The release includes Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 9 in C major, Op. 59 No. 3 'Razumovsky' (1806), String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 No. 2 'Serioso' (1810), and the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 (1825-26).
The 'Razumovsky' Quartets (1806), commissioned by Count Razumovsky for his house quartet led by Schuppanzigh, expanded the genre's scale beyond Op. 18, baffling early listeners with their symphonic ambition. The first two were released last March (BIS-2688). The third and final quartet of the set, Op. 59 No. 3 in C major, which opens this recording, is the most accessible, with a Mozart-indebted introduction, a Slavonic-sounding Andante, and a flamboyant fugal finale.
The F minor Quartet, Op. 95 ('Quartetto serioso', 1810), written amid personal turmoil, is starker and more radical – compressed, harmonically abrupt, and structurally fragmented, ending unexpectedly in a light F major coda.
Finally, the Grosse Fuge (1826), originally the finale of Op. 130, represents Beethoven's most uncompromising achievement: a vast, dissonant fusion of fugue and variation that baffled contemporaries but was later hailed by Stravinsky as timeless and revolutionary. Together these works chart Beethoven's progression from conversational classicism to visionary modernism.
Next Concerts
12 October | RNCM Concert Hall | Manchester
14 October | Wigmore Hall | London
17 October | Pierre Boulez Saal | Berlin
More information is available at chiaroscuroquartet.com.
Photo Credit: Joss McKinley
Photo Credit: Joss McKinley
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