Leonkoro Quartet review – vivid, intoxicating play from gleaming future stars

2026-02-04 - 13:35

Wigmore Hall, London This young Berlin-based quartet impressed in a polished recital that built on Webern and Mendelssohn towards Beethoven’s enigmatic 0p 131 Even by the standards of Beethoven’s late quartets, his String Quartet No 14 in C sharp minor Op 131 is a strange piece. Opening with a lengthy fugue, it sprawls across seven movements – although one lasts only 11 bars and several run straight into each other. Moods shift quixotically. Motifs are obsessively repeated and developed. Beethoven supposedly considered it his finest quartet, but two centuries later this remains a work that asks a lot of its listener as well as its performers. No surprise, then, that the Berlin-based Leonkoro Quartet programmed this particular monument for their latest Wigmore Hall appearance since being shot to prominence with multiple wins in the 2022 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet competition. It’s an intensely serious statement of ambition from a group whose newest member was born in 2006 and who have recently garnered rave reviews for their second album. Continue reading...