Lukas Hagen, violin
Rainer Schmidt, violin
Veronika Hagen, viola
Clemens Hagen, cello
“One of the finest quartets of our time.” — The Washington Post
The Hagen Quartet has reached an unparalleled position among the leading ensembles of our era, hailed as “the pinnacle of musicality” (Die Presse). For nearly four decades, the Hagen Quartet has performed worldwide and built an impressive discography of around fifty recordings. Based in Salzburg, the quartet celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2021. Beyond its exceptional performances, the ensemble’s distinctive approach to quartet playing sets it apart: the Hagens focus solely on the music they create, a philosophy that resonates deeply in their remarkable success.
In recent seasons, the Quartet has appeared in major musical capitals around the world, including several concerts at Wigmore Hall and the Cité de la Musique. They travelled to Amsterdam to open the inaugural biennial String Quartet Festival at the Concertgebouw, toured Asia with three concerts in Tokyo, and collaborated with Sol Gabetta and Jörg Widmann. In addition, a long-awaited Brahms recording with pianist Kirill Gerstein was released by Myrios Classics.
The Hagen Quartet has been performing regularly in North America for decades. Recent highlights include a complete Beethoven cycle at New York’s 92Y, a Brahms programme with pianist Kirill Gerstein at Duke University, and concerts in Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Montreal, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
The Quartet’s most recent recording, featuring Mozart’s String Quartets K. 387 and K. 458, won the Diapason d’Or, the Choc de Classica, and the prestigious German ECHO Klassik Award (2016). In 2011, the Hagen Quartet celebrated its 30th anniversary with two recordings for Myrios Classics featuring works by Mozart, Webern, Beethoven, Grieg, and Brahms. That same year, the ensemble won the ECHO Klassik Award for Ensemble of the Year; in 2012, the Quartet was named Honorary Member of the Vienna Konzerthaus. Shortly after its founding in 1981, the Hagen Quartet signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon, resulting in forty-five albums over the next twenty years, covering a vast repertoire and culminating in landmark quartet recordings.
Lukas, Veronika, and Clemens Hagen are siblings who have performed together for nearly their entire lives; Rainer Schmidt joined the group in 1987. The Quartet has regularly collaborated with renowned artists such as György Kurtág, Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, Sabine Meyer, Krystian Zimerman, Heinrich Schiff, Jörg Widmann, and the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Young musicians look to the Hagen Quartet as a model of sound quality, ensemble playing, and genuine dedication to the works and composers of the string quartet repertoire. As professors and mentors at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Hochschule in Basel, as well as through international masterclasses, the members of the Quartet take pride in passing their rich experience and traditional craftsmanship on to the next generation.
