The
Schumann Quartett, though less than a decade old as of 2020, has achieved a high profile in its native Germany, across Europe, and in the less chamber music-friendly U.S. The group has amassed a growing and increasingly prestigious list of collaborators.
The
Schumann Quartett was formed in 2012 in Cologne by siblings
Mark,
Erik, and Ken Schumann. They were joined by the violist Liisa Randalu. Studying with Eberhard Feltz and the
Alban Berg Quartet, the group quickly found high-quality bookings. In 2016, the quartet began a three-year residency at New York's Chamber Music Society of New York in Lincoln Center. The name of the quartet has nothing to do with that of the composer
Robert Schumann, but the group is the holder of a long-term residency at the Robert-Schumann-Saal in Düsseldorf, also completing a similar stint at Schloss Esterházy in Hungary,
Haydn's home for most of his long quartet-writing career. It has also performed with world-class collaborators to an unusual degree for such a new group, including clarinetist
Sabine Meyer, pianist
Menahem Pressler, and singer
Anna Lucia Richter. The
Schumann Quartett has toured major European capitals and made appearances at festivals in Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands, as well as Germany.
Just a year after its formation, the
Schumann Quartett was signed to the Ars Produktion label and released an album featuring string quartets by Brahms, Beethoven, and Bartók. The group moved to Berlin Classics in 2017, issuing the album Landscapes, which paired repertory works by
Haydn and
Bartók with newer pieces from Toru Takemitsu and
Arvo Pärt. Its successor, 2018's Intermezzo, featured
Richter and received an Opus Klassik award in the quintet category. In 2019, the quartet issued the album Chiaroscuro on Berlin Classics, containing music by
Bach,
Mozart,
Mendelssohn,
Glass,
Shostakovich, Webern,
Janáček, and
Gershwin.