Press & Reviews
The Strad Magazine (United Kingdom)
Münchner Merkur
(Munich, February 2013):
“Spain in crisis? Not in music, because what the Cuarteto Quiroga offered us was an absolute experience of world-class rank. What these musicians gave us with eloquent colours and passionate sound was fascination and splendor. On the top of that, we should add sharpness and a sophisticated, vehement technique with a breathtaking intonation, which opened for the audience new dimensions of the works performed. The four outstanding players were coming together in such an elastic and elegant way that the concert became a sheer pleasure. In a few words: this was the best concert of the genre one has heard in this region in a long time.
(…) The quartet was totally in command of the variety and individuality of each movement [of Haydn Op.20, n.2], as well as the ideal of equality of voices: their interpretation had a lively presence and was emphatic, intense and substantial.
(…) And how did the spaniards play Brahms Op.51, n.2! How did they emphasize the structure with the feeling of contrasts! That was astonishing: between sensibility and passion, quiet listening and pronounced replies, deepness of sentiments and harshness, transparency and accents, with a sound that had both delicacy and a substantial core.
Jubilant and prolonged applauses were followed by loud screams of Bravi… One could even have dared to cry out load: Olé!”
Peninsula Reviews (San Francisco - Carmel, California, USA, March 2014)
“An amazing gift (…) these performers demonstrated breathtaking intonation and kept the texture exceptionally clear and transparent in the passages of this highly complex polyphony (…) Cuarteto Quiroga impresses with its beautifully balanced ensemble playing, their amazing attention to detail and a breadth of understanding of both the structure of each piece and also their own place in the history of the string quartet.”
El País (Madrid-Santander, July 14th 2006)
“… The audience responded enthusiastically to the performance of these wonderful works [Mozart K499 and Dvorak Piano Quintet] and the beautiful sound of David Kadouch and the Cuarteto Quiroga…”
Ideal
(Granada, 26th June 2006)
“After a dramatic and dark Schubert, carefully laid out, the quartet reached the highpoint of the concert with the brilliance and effect of Lalo’s String Quartet op.45. Their performance was flawless, and the audience awarded the members of Cuarteto Quiroga with well-deserved applause.”
Le Monde
(Paris, 15th June 2009)
“With their Haydn everything vibrates, breathes, is full of emotion, and is, as in the first movement, full of life. In Alban Berg they reach your gut, giving a dramatic, fulminating explosion that leaves everything trembling. With Beethoven, these instrumentalists let their interpretative qualities shine. The very expressive but rigorous Iberians give everything their heart and joy, as strong in the painful intimacy of the 3rd movement (where they create a tension sharp as a knife) as in the cutting end-phrases. Special mention to the leader, Aitor Hevia, impeccable in all registers”
Concertonet
(Oviedo, 25th August 2008)
“A Quartet of Smiles. The four instrumentalists are truly homogenous and show a true joy of playing. A real pleasure to observe. They impress with clarity, attention to detail, breathing, sound production, and exemplary phrasing. No ornaments or unnecessary embellishments: A direct style delivered with an irreproachable technique.”
Buenos Aires Herald
(Buenos Aires, Argentina, 21st October 2007)
“The Spanish Cuarteto Quiroga was a great surprise. The players showed admirable qualities: lovely sound, perfect intonation and committed phrasing. Spain is producing real talent in a field that was rarely entered into that country.”
Le Monde
(Paris, 15th June 2009)
“With their Haydn everything vibrates, breathes, is full of emotion, and is, as in the first movement, full of life. In Alban Berg they reach your gut, giving a dramatic, fulminating explosion that leaves everything trembling. With Beethoven, these instrumentalists let their interpretative qualities shine. The very expressive but rigorous Iberians give everything their heart and joy, as strong in the painful intimacy of the 3rd movement (where they create a tension sharp as a knife) as in the cutting end-phrases. Special mention to the leader, Aitor Hevia, impeccable in all registers”
Arbetarbladet
(Sweden, 7th August 2010)
“Cuarteto Quiroga shone with ideal collaboration, ensemble sound, and balance. They dug deep into the music and found the work’s core, its meaning and its soul. It does not get better than this!!”
Scherzo
(Madrid, December 2010)
“The enthuastic reading by Cuarteto Quiroga, ardent and well-blended, confirmed that this ensemble’s early promise, concert after concert, is turning into mature reality.”
La Voz de Galicia
(17th April 2011)
“A historic concert. Of the quartet’s superb performance this can be said: considered by critics to be one of the main young ensembles of Europe, their international prestige is widely recognized and in this concert they did honor to their fame: perfect intonation, flawless balance, perfectly clear textures, and a sound of such volume and quality as we could attribute to the best of chamber orchestras. Their performance moved us to the point of forgetting we were not listening to a whole orchestra with its timbric variety. Although words did not sound, sounds did talk. [Mozart’s Requiem, in string quartet version]”
Rhein-Neckar Zeitung
(Heidelberg, January 2013):
“The Cuarteto Quiroga showed to be an artist of sound of the most sophisticated and impressive class in the specially experimental C major Quartet Op.20/2 by Haydn. That was Chamber Music in the most literal sense: one could experiment the profoundly intimate and sublime discussion -magically harmonic, indeed- between four experts and music lovers (Kennern und Liebhabern), which seemed to play freely, more for themselves than for the audience. One can rarely hear a Haydn quartet played the way this extraordinary ensemble does, so easily light and elegant, also in virtuoso moments (Final Fugue!).”
Tidningen Kulturen
(Stockholm, Sweden, 9th August 2010):
“In the Quiroga’s masterful readings, music reaches the boiling point.”
El Correo Vasco
(Bilbao, December 2nd, 2004)
“The finale was absolutely sensational, with technical prowess, sense of style and extraverted substance”
The New York Times
(January 17th, 2012)
“Exquisite: precise, perfectly balanced, interpretively fresh performances, couched in consistently warm hues.”
Mundoclásico
(Madrid, 14th June 2006)
“Their interpretation was impeccable [Bartók 3rd quartet]. With this work Cuarteto Quiroga has proved to have joined the first tier of string quartets.”
Mundoclásico
(Salta, Argentina, 24th October 2007)
“Excellent Spanish Quartet. The balance and conceptual unity exhibited by these players […], the elegance, the well-paced tension, the carefully measured expression… this is a quartet which belongs to the premier league of this type of ensemble..”
La Vanguardia
(Perelada, Barcelona, 4th August 2008)
“A good quartet. This ensemble has a string core in the second violin and the cellist, a good leader … and a consistent violist. They have a good sound, a calibrated homogeneous vibrato, quick reaction and a good comprehension of the tension and internal rhythms of music. Excellent qualities: Congratulations!”
La Nueva España
(Asturias 26th August 2008)
“A top quartet. An energetic performance, rich in nuances. The different layers of sound found in compositions by Mozart, Bartók and Beethoven showed a profound understanding of these works. Unity in musical interpretation between the four voices was the basis for this exemplary performance. Listening: that seems to be the guideline that these four string players follow in their approach.”
La Opinion
(A Coruña, 4th march 2010)
“I am not amazed by the list of the prizes won, their appearances or the professional engagements of this group, but by the way the play: wonderfully, phrasing in an exquisite way, thanks to an utmost delicate dynamic game which brings out some daunting pianissimos which show a rare ability to control balance and volume. The sonic signature of the group is appealing, a result of a very intense work which is indispensable to acquire this perfection, not only to achieve impeccable resolution of the most difficult sections, but -mainly- to accomplish the identity of the timbre and perfect hierarchy of the sonic layers. Everything was played at a high level. But where the high level of this group became most evident was with the hard and overwhelming music of Webern which left the audience in awe. The concert finished with a standing ovation.”
La Vanguardia
(Barcelona 19th April 2010)
“This was the best chamber music concert of this season in Barcelona. […] Very rarely one experiences this small but big miracles […]”
Gefle Dagblad
(Sweden, 8th August 2010)
“Cuarteto Quiroga was in my view the highlight of the festival: their performance of Alban Berg op.3. In their hands this music turns into a masterpiece of expressionism.”
Ara (Barcelona, May 2011):
“They started the night with the grace, lightness and vitality that Arriaga’s 3rdquartet demands. Then came an anthological version of Boccherini’s Fandango and a volcanic performance of Brahms’ Piano Quintet. The nobility of their phrasing in the second movement was perhaps the highlight of this great concert, which started as well as it finished.”
El Heraldo
( Zaragoza, April 2012)
“The Quirogas are special as they represent the very essence of String Quartet, with their profound communication devised to serve the great music”
Diario Bahía de Cádiz
(Cádiz, March 2012)
“The unity and balance of a string quartet have this group as a paradigm”