Germany's
Minguet Quartett -- violinists
Ulrich Isfort and
Annette Reisinger, violist
Aroa Sorin, and cellist
Matthias Diener -- divides its performances and recordings between Romantic (and occasionally Classical-period) and contemporary repertory. The quartet's recording career has intersected with boutique, sonically sophisticated German labels.
The
Minguet Quartett (or Quartet) was founded in 1988. The quartet's name comes from that of the Spanish composer, musicologist, engraver, and musical philosopher Pablo Minguet y Yrol, an intriguing figure who advocated the diffusion of the fine arts broadly across society. Perhaps ironically, many of the quartet's activities have focused on difficult music that has generally been the province of specialists. It has commissioned and premiered a variety of new works in the 21st century. A noted project in which the quartet participated was a realization of
Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helikopter-Streichquartett (Helicopter Quartet) by conductor
Kent Nagano. By the 2017 and 2018 seasons, the
Minguet Quartett was making appearances at top venues in Germany and beyond, including the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the Library of Congress in Washington, among others. Frequently guests at German festivals, including the Mozartfest Würzburg and the Beethovenfest in Bonn, the quartet has toured continental Europe, Britain, North and South America, and Japan. Its collaborators include mezzo-soprano
Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, clarinetists
Matthias Schorn and
Thorsten Johanns, pianists
Michael Korstick and
Matthias Kirschnereit, and bandoneonist
Victor Villena, among others.
Particularly notable has been the depth of the group's recording catalog, which began in 1996 with a
recording of the quartets of Othmar Schoeck on the audiophile MDG label and has strongly favored German composers. It has made the first complete recordings of the string quartets of
Jörg Widmann,
Peter Ruzicka, and
Wolfgang Rihm. The group has also made complete recordings of the quartets of
Josef Suk and the romantic rival of
Brahms,
Heinrich von Herzogenberg. The
Minguet Quartett has recorded for the Col Legno label (the home of its
Rihm cycle), as well as for CPO, Neos, Wergo, and others. The group released an album of
Mendelssohn quartets on CPO, including the youthful quartet of 1823, in 2018 and also made a complete recording of the quartets of Robert Fuchs that year. In 2021, the
Minguet Quartett returned on the
ECM label as part of the multi-ensemble work
Anájikon by
Konstantia Gourzi. The group plans for a future recording of
Glenn Gould's rarely played String Quartet in F minor, Op. 1.