Gropius Quartett's New Album: Mendelssohn, Albrecht, and Dvořák

Released on Hänssler Classic, the album features three string quartet works alongside a traditional Catalan song

Based in Germany, the Gropius Quartett comprises violinists Indira Koch and Friedemann Eichhorn, violist Alexia Eichhorn, and cellist Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.

The group’s first studio album on the German independent record label Hänssler Classic features Mendelssohn’s famed String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, and Dvorák’s popular String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 “Americano.”

The album also features a premiere recording of the late German composer George Alexander Albrecht’s Von Angst und Trauer erlöst durch die Liebe (“Redeemed from Fear and Sorrow through Love”), which was written in 2018 and dedicated to the Gropius Quartett.

Additionally, the quartet plays its own arrangement of cellist Pablo Casals’ El cant dels ocells (“The Song of the Birds”), a traditional Catalan carol. Casals made the song famous when he would often perform his version for cello as an encore. 

To purchase and listen to the album, click here.

The members of the Gropius Quartett have known each other since their student days at the Menuhin International Academy of Music and The Juilliard School — and made their debut as a group at Weimar's National Theater in 2018. 

They have since collaborated with artists including violinist Gidon Kremer, pianists Evgeny Kissin, Lily Maisky, Matthias Kirschnereit, and Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro, and cellists Mischa Maisky and Camille Thomas.

A champion of contemporary music, the group has also received commissions from composers including Enjott Schneider and Sir Karl Jenkins, among others. Its upcoming recording projects will involve the Divorce quartet and the world premiere of the Leopards sextet by the Turkish composer Fazıl Say on the Naxos label. 

In the coming months, the quartet will tour the U.S. and Canada, and perform in Spain for the first time in November in a concert with works by Haydn, Puccini, Hugo Wolf, Mendelssohn, and Jenkins.