For the Hagen Quartet, music is sacred! For more than 30 years, Lukas, the first violin, has played head of the family in the company of his little sister Veronika on viola and the youngest, Clemens, on cello. While the original group lost Angelika, the eldest, now a renowned ethnologist who was succeeded by Annette Bik and then Rainer Schmidt on second violin, the Hagen Quartet remains synonymous with interpretative excellence and faultless ensemble playing.

The mother tongue of this Salzburg family? Why, the music of Mozart, of course – the city’s prodigal son, whose compositions they know down to the very tips of their fingers, notably the  Quartet in D major K 575, a work whose Mona Lisa smile was destined for the royal cello of Friedrich-Wilhelm II of Prussia. Mozart was then 33 years old and had more than 24 quartets to his name – quite the contrary of Beethoven and Debussy , who at age 30 were only beginning to test their talents for the first time in the perilous waters of the string quartet. The Hagen Quartet makes it clear: 30 is the optimal age for a quartet.

With

Quatuor Hagen :
Lukas Hagen violin
Rainer Schmidt violin
Veronika Hagen viola
Clemens Hagen cello

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Quartett in D Major K 575
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Quartett in F Major op. 18 n°1
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Quartett in G minor, op. 10