Chiaroscuro Quartet

In 2005 the Chiaroscuro Quartet formed in the shadow of the walls of London's Royal College of Music, bringing together musicians from all over Europe. “We all do other things away from the quartet, but it is very important to us to come together. We may even have travelled very far the very same day, but when we get together again, we feel immediately at home”, says viola player Emilie Hörnlund.

The four instrumentalists wished to get back to the original sounds of the pieces and thus choose to play historical instruments: a choice that their first recordings of Mozart and Schubert (Aparté, 2011) defended admirably. Their 2012 recording is of Beethoven, a composer to whom they will pay homage in their Aix-en-Provence concert, with the “Harp” Quartet Op. 74 and the Ninth Piano Sonata, Op. 14 No. 1 , a transcription of which exists for a string quartet by Beethoven himself dated 1801. They will also perform the String Quartet in A minor by Mendelssohn , heir to the Beethovenian concept of music for string quartets composed by the talented young man only some months before the death of his elder.