Press Quotations
"Interpreting classical music needs heaps of commitment and an amalgam of musical talents to enrich the final product - virtues that were superlatively demonstrated by the Ysaÿe Quartet. The concert included one of the quartets that Mozart offered as a spiritual homage to his master Haydn, and in the interpretation of each player there were moments of highly magical atmosphere ; all the Quartet's members breathed with the same breath, presenting a crystalline Mozartianism with body and soul. The results were magnificent transparencies and an elegance of phrasing ..."
El Periodico de Catalunya, Spain
7 July 2006
"A more brilliant opening could scarcely be imagined : from the very first moment onwards the Konzerthaus debut of the Ysaÿe Quartet was a bath in luxurious sonority ... Such a homogeneous ensemble sound is not heard every day, even in Vienna, spoilt though we are for string quartets."
Die Presse, Vienna
27 April 2006
"This release by the Ysaÿe Quartet gives the answer to the question as to whether it is still possible to cause a stir these days with a CD just of Beethoven works. Yes, it is possible! The astonishment begins with the unusual programme. Beethoven's Quintet Op 29 is not exactly one of the composer's greatest hits. But when the playing is as lively, colourful and witty as this, one feels like putting it in the Top Ten."
Ensemble, Germany
June/July 2005
"With releases of this outstanding quality, the Ysaÿe Quartet's own label, released through Aeon, is surely guaranteed success. It was recorded in a dormitory in l'Epau Abbey, and there are few string quartet recordings so lucid, so beguilingly velvet-toned, and so absolutely at one with the music in hand. This is a disc that is a pleasure to listen to simply because of the sound it makes. Add to that an interpretative overview that marries the other-worldly quality of the LaSalle's Second Viennese School series with the beguiling sensuality of the Melos Quartet's mid-1970s Ravel, and an intonational cohesion and technical ease worthy of early 1980s Alban Berg, and you have a release made in heaven."
International Record Review, London
April 2005
"The members of the Ysaÿe Quartet, consistently sensitive, make this authentic masterpiece (Magnard) seem like an act of gentle madness... Without any apparent falsifying of the spirit of the work, they are also quite right in locating Gabriel Fauré's Op 121 in a dimension of utter serenity."
Le Monde, Paris
1 February 2005
"The Ysaÿe Quartet, glittering with its perfect sense of co-ordination, with nuances arising from well-balanced collective impulses, here (Magnard and Fauré) reaps the rich rewards of its passion and commitment."
Le Monde de la Musique, Paris
February 2005
"Schumann's three string quartets are interpreted with passion, tremendous understanding and virtuosity by the Ysaÿe Quartet, one of France's finest ensembles. These are spacious and radiant accounts, giving full rein to the romanticism of Schumann's soul but also pointing up the pieces' structural fascinations, the bizarre rhythmic quirks of the third quartet's final movement, the tenderness and feverish intensity inherent in all three. The playing itself is nothing short of brilliant."
Classic FM Magazine, London
April 2004
"This new complete recording of the Schumann quartets is an event. It surpasses all the other available versions in mastery and sensitivity. Exceptionally cohesive and recorded with a naturally luminous sound .. the Ysaÿe's vision is spellbinding. Vigour, freshness, imagination, nostalgia, dreaminess, even irony .. each characteristic is judged with scrupulous accuracy, yet with an apparent absence of effort."
Diapason, Paris
March 2004
"After an exemplary 20 year career .. the Ysaÿe Quartet does not assert any claim to being France's best quartet with this new recording of Schumann's Op 41. That status is already assured. Rather, it proves that the Ysaÿe has a place among the greats, whether of the past or of the present Schumann's white-hot inspiration of 1842 finds in the Ysaÿe a maturity of response that is both brilliant and exacting, free and innovative, whose attention to the constraints of form favours its liberation from them, and whose fidelity to the text means that its spirit is more wholly embodied."
Le Monde, Paris
March 2004
"The four parts constantly take turns in leading the game and providing accompaniment and support. Only a seasoned, well-knit quartet can venture on this tightrope-walk. Soon to celebrate its 20th anniversary, the Ysaÿe Quartet .. has achieved a triumphant level of richness and flexibility, the prerogative of the greatest."
Telerama, Paris
March 2004
"Since its formation in 1984, the Ysaÿe Quartet has been riding high as one of Europe's pre-eminent chamber groups. All teachers at the Conservatoire Superieur de Musique in Paris, they combine fine musicianship with their egghead status ... There is great tenderness here, amid occasional Sturm und Drang, in what should prove a recording milestone to rival their memorable Mozart."
The Observer, London
27 July 2003
"A trip to Cheltenham's Pittville Pump Room yielded a wonderfully poised performance from the Ysaÿe Quartet, who brought appropriately judicious gravitas to the deliberate banality of Haydn's Joke Quartet before finding a wonderfully operatic atmosphere of secrecy to the final movement of one of Mozart's Haydn quartets... Debussy's string quartet demands an exquisite control of dynamics, right down to the merest shudder of a pizzicato, and the Ysaÿe proved equal to every challenge."
The Observer, London
20 July 2003
"A distinguished concert by an exceptional group. The world is not short of good string quartets but the Ysaÿe must be somewhere near the top of the current crop... All four listen so carefully to each other and play this music (Schumann Op 41/3) as if it were the most natural of conversations between four friends, none of whom need to hog the limelight."
classicalsource.com,
17 July 2003
"An evening of rare impressiveness was experienced by the audience in the Beethovenhaus. The Ysaÿe Quartet played works by Chausson, Fauré and Dvorák with gripping intensity and an enchanting beauty of tone."
General-Anzeiger, Germany
16 April 2002
"...the Ysaÿe Quartet developed a refined intensity, shaping the constantly flowing stream of notes with an elegantly restrained passion ... the quartet thrilled the audience with their versatility and their electrifying musicianship."
Bonner Rundschau, Germany
15 April 2002
"...this is music (Schumann: Quartet Op 41 No 1) that leaps from the page, and the players caught hold of it in an elegant yet virtuosic account."
Times, London
10 April 2002
"Apart from the sense of control that gives them a united musical intelligence of the first order, they all do everything possible in interpretations which are fired at point blank range, so to speak, with that spontaneous and forceful passion to which all true artists give themselves ... it was a Brahms performance in which those three main musical vectors - melodic sound, harmony, and tempo - were united in a truly masterful balance."
El Mundo, Spain
7 March 2002
"Those of us who stayed for the entire concert were rewarded with an impressive recital of sensitivity and technical mastery on the part of the Ysaÿe Quartet. In them the surging passions of Schumann and Brahms seemed to flow with an audacious naturalness, thanks to a perfect sense of ensemble and to a sound that is both brilliant and compact ..."
Diario de Sevilla, Spain
7 March 2002
"The Ysaÿe Quartet ranks among the most aristocratic of today's chamber groups. They combine refinement with delicacy, intellectual rigour with emotional subtlety and, although most people associate them with 19th century repertoire, they are also a knock-out in Mozart. The Ysaÿe judge Mozart's shifts in mood, both movement to movement and work to work, with a quiet perfection.
Guardian, London
19 December 2001
"From the first moment of piercing eye contact between cello and first violin, the Ysaÿe Quartet tuned their voices to close-harmony cantabile ... Then came the wonders of the E flat quartet (Mozart: Quartet K 428). Here the Ysaÿe began with a silverpoint unison to die for, radiating out into a rhythmic and contrapuntal bag of tricks which not only paid breathtaking tribute to Haydn but all but confounded him at his own game.
Times, London
17 December 2001
"...these superb musicians gave a performance which was absolutely riveting in the intensity of mood shown." (Shostakovich: Quartet No 8)
Hawkes Bay Today, New Zealand
31 October 2001
"The Ysaÿe Quartet's lustrously large sound and interpretative unity is remarkable. This, coupled with its penetrating analytical skills and first-rate technical powers, makes it easy to understand the cult status the group has achieved ... This sold-out Wigmore Hall concert ... highlighted just what makes their style so special ... all in all, exquisitely tasteful and refined playing."
Strad, London
December 1999
"This is truly a quartet of the highest level, both for the overall effect, and for their individual abilities."
La Stampa, Italy
20 January 1999
"The real discovery last night concerned the high art of string quartet playing, for what the four gentlemen offered was of sublime quality."
Berliner Zeitung, Germany
23 February 1998
"Concerts such as the one given by the Ysaÿe Quartet are as balm to the exposed nerves of a critic. That supremely balanced, technically masterful group of performers demonstrated a clear tonal and stylistic conception."
Der Tagesspiegel, Germany
22 February 1998
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