GRAMOPHONE Magazine Editor's Choice - October 2015.The Artemis Quartet pairs Brahms’ intense first quartet with his lighter-spirited third quartet, both works that the Artemis’ cellist, Eckart Runge, describes as “remarkable and multi-faceted”. He says that “Brahms marries a Romantic spirit with the structure and forms of Classicism. There is an almost symphonic approach in the writing, but at the same time the quartets are imbued with a sense of warmth, immediacy, friendship and love that is interwoven with a more spiritual, timeless beauty”.

The Artemis Quartet have established one of the richest discographies among modern string quartets. This album highlights great figures of German Romanticism from the earliest Beethoven masterpieces to Schubert's and Schumann's masterworks.

Lilting melodies and exhilarating dance rhythms; gentle pathos, brooding drama and robust high spirits; the spirit of rural Bohemia and the sophistication of Prague, Vienna, New York and London in the late 19th century: Antonin Dvořák’s music is unfailingly distinctive and captivating. In all his works – from the epic ‘New World’ Symphony and Cello Concerto to the irresistible Slavonic Dances, haunting ‘American’ String Quartet, quirky violin Humoresque and yearning Song to the Moon – he is a composer whose heart is open and generous, and whose love for his homeland always shines through. This box provides an illuminating and enriching survey of his works, including his complete symphonies. A number of the celebrated performers have Slavonic roots themselves; all their interpretations draw on a deep affinity with Dvořák’s inspiration and humanity.

Listeners who think they know Schubert's popular Quartettsatz in C minor and String Quintet in C major should try this 2008 recording of those works by the Artemis Quartet. The driving Quartettsatz beginning the disc is justly famous for inaugurating Schubert's maturity as a chamber music composer, but the tender Andante following it here is a rarely recorded fragment that would have furnished the Quartettsatz with a slow movement had Schubert completed the movement.

Originally released in 2000 on Ars Musici, the sublime recordings by the Artemis Quartett of György Ligeti's String Quartet No. 1, "Métamorphoses nocturnes" (1953-1954), and his String Quartet No. 2 (1968) fully merit this 2005 reissue by Virgin Classics, not only for the high quality of the music surely some of the most communicative and rewarding quartet music since Bartók or Shostakovich but also for the precision, depth, and resonance of the group's playing.

Following the Artemis Quartet‘s prizewinning Beethoven Quartet cycle on Virgin Classics, the Berlin-based ensemble has recorded Schubert’s last three quartets, works that Artemis cellist Eckart Runge praises for both their “incredible simplicity and purity” and their “almost terrifying modernism”.

Continuing its fresh, vibrant survey of the Beethoven string quartets, this volume finds the Artemis Quartet visiting the two quartets in the key of B flat major. The first, Op. 18/6, comes from the beginning of Beethoven's career as a composer of quartets, following in the footsteps of Mozart and Haydn while already forging new ground and pushing the envelope of traditional quartet form.

Reissue of the Berlin-based Artemis Quartett performing string quartets composed by Brahms and verdi. The Artemis Quartett was founded in 1989 at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, and is recognised today as one of the foremost quartets in the world. Their mentors include Walter Levin, Alfred Brendel, the Alban Berg Quartet, the Juilliard Quartet and the Emerson Quartet.

Fresh, vibrant, informed; these are adjectives that continue to apply to the Beethoven string quartet cycle performed by the Artemis Quartett on the Virgin Classics label. Having studied with some of the world's finest ensembles including the LaSalle, Alban Berg, Emerson, and Juilliard quartets Artemis exceeds the sum of its education by not simply mimicking its predecessors, but improving upon them.