Cuarteto Casals - About

We were so honoured to be granted a BBT Award and it could not have come at a more ideal moment for us. For years we had just talked about various projects: classical bows appropriate for Mozart or Haydn, studying intensively with György Kurtág, or learning from a great artist like Mitsuko Uchida, but once we were offered the resources of the entire BBT organization, everything fell into place. The award has allowed us to develop musically in ways that would not have been possible without such support. Thank you BBT!

Founded in Madrid in 1997 and comprising the same members until 2024, Cuarteto Casals possesses “a sonic signature entirely its own” (New York Times) that offers up “playing of extreme technical perfection yet with life bursting from every note” (The Times). The Quartet is welcomed time and again in the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals and has also built a musical legacy of more than 20 highly acclaimed recordings, the majority on the Harmonia Mundi label.

In the Quartet’s own words, “A young quartet is a chaotic mix of influences and aspirations which need to be moulded over time into a distinct and coherent voice. This process takes a great deal of time, sacrifice and patience, all of which are often in short supply in the most important years of a quartet’s formation.” Like one of BBT’s very first award-winners, the Jerusalem Quartet, Cuarteto Casals was already over a decade old at the time of receiving its BBT award, but the Trust is well aware that achieving success as a quartet can be a longer and costlier experience than for a solo instrumentalist, and therefore elected to give the Quartet a Special Study Award.  This not only helped them to begin a collection of matching Baroque and Classical period bows to use for works from Purcell to Schubert, but also allowed them the time to study and further refine their ability to distinguish between diverse musical styles. BBT also helped to fund travel and hotel expenses to travel to masterclasses, and also update their publicity photographs.

Cuarteto Casals was supported with a BBT Special Study Award in 2008.

For a current biography please visit impresariat-simmenauer.de

Read a blog by Cuarteto Casals, More questions than answers: an afternoon with Mitsuko Uchida, here

Photographs by Pablo Rodrigo Studio