Belcea Quartet

As the London Times wrote in the Spring of 2019, the musicians of the Belcea Quartet are not confined by traditional boundaries. The two founding members, the Romanian violinist Corina Belcea and the Polish violist Krzysztof Chorzelski, brought a very different artistic provenance to the ensemble in 1994, which was expanded by the French musicians Axel Schacher (violin) and Antoine Lederlin (violoncello).

This also reflects the range of their repertoire; they have already recorded the complete string quartets of Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms (Diapason d'or de l'année 2016), and Britten and are constantly presenting new works by contemporary composers such as Joseph Phibbs, Krzysztof Penderecki, Thomas Larcher, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Guillaume Connesson. These commissioned works are created in association with the quartet's own foundation, whose aim is to continually broaden the string quartet literature as well as to support young quartets through concentrated joint coaching sessions. In this way they can also pass on to the next generation the experience they gained as students of the Amadeus and Alban Berg Quartet.

In addition to the complete recordings, the quartet can refer to a varied discography with recordings (among others) of Berg, Dutilleux, Mozart, Schoenberg, and Schubert. Recent recordings include the Shostakovich album, with the 3rd String Quartet and the Piano Quintet with Piotr Anderszewski (2018) and the string quartets by Janáček and Ligeti's 'Metamorphoses nocturnes' (2019). In the Spring of 2022 they recorded both of Brahms’ String Sextets with Tabea Zimmermann and Jean-Guihen Queyras. Their performances of all Beethoven String Quartets at the Konzerthaus Vienna in 2012 were released on DVD by EuroArts in 2014, followed by the release of a recording of Britten's three String Quartets in 2015.

From 2017 to 2020, the quartet was the Ensemble in Residence of the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, where the four have returned regularly since. Since 2010 the Belcea Quartet is part of a shared string quartet cycle at the Konzerthaus Vienna; from this season on the Quatuor Ébène is their partner-ensemble there.