Bennewitz Quartet

The Bennewitz Quartet is one of the leading chamber ensembles internationally, as evidenced not only by its victories in two prestigious competitions – Osaka in 2005 and the Paolo Borciani Prize in Italy in 2008 – but also by unanimous critical acclaim. As early as 2006, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: “… the music was remarkable not only for the clarity of its structure, but also for the splendid palette of timbre and purity of intonation in the performance. Rarely are such powerful and skillfully constructed harmonies heard…. Great art.”

Also on the Czech music scene, the quartet has received several awards: in 2004 it received the Czech Chamber Music Society Award, while in 2019 the four musicians won the Classic Prague Award for Best Chamber Music Performance of the Year. Currently, the quartet performs in the most important concert halls both in the Czech Republic and abroad (Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, The Frick Collection in New York, Seoul Art Center, Rudolfinum, and others), and is regularly invited to festivals such as Salzburger Festspiele, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Kammermusikfest in Lockenhaus, and Prague Spring Festival. The group has had the privilege of collaborating with such renowned artists as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Alexander Melnikov, Vadim Gluzman, Isabel Charisius, Pietro de Maria, Reto Bieri, Danjulo Ishizaka and others. The Bennewitz Quartet particularly enjoys playing and presenting itself on the Czech national music scene.

Highlights include collaboration with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and its conductor Jiří Bělohlávek in the performance of Bohuslav Martinů’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra. The group recorded both of Leoš Janáček’s quartets for Czech Television in the unique space of Villa Tugendhat in Brno. Czech Radio regularly records the quartet’s major concerts. The quartet members pay great attention to the inspiring and sometimes challenging choice of concert repertoire. In 2012 and 2015, the ensemble performed Bartók’s complete six string quartets in a single evening at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and in Uppsala, Sweden. In 2014, the four premiered Slavomír Hořínka’s The Songs of Immigrants at the Konzerthaus in Berlin. In 2019 the quartet added a new CD to its discography with music by persecuted Jewish composers H. Krása, V. Ullmann, E. Schulhoff and P. Haas on the Supraphon label. In the 2024/25 season, the Bennewitz Quartet returns to several European venues, including London’s Wigmore Hall, Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle and Berlin’s Konzerthaus, performing string quintets by Dvořák and Brahms with Veronika Hagen.

The quartet also performs in the United States, debuting in Providence, Houston and Tucson, and returning to the Music and Beyond Festival in Ottawa and the Harvard Musical Association in Boston. In parallel, several concert projects continue in the Czech Republic. The final concerts of the complete performance of Dvořák’s string quartets are held in September as part of the Dvořák Festival in Prague. In the same month a new CD is released on the Supraphon label featuring string quartets by the composers who “play together” – Haydn, Mozart, Vaňhal and Dittersdorf. Since 1998 the quartet has been named after the violinist and director of the Prague Conservatory of Music, Antonín Bennewitz (1833-1926), who contributed significantly to the founding of the Czech violin school.

Among his most distinguished pupils are Otakar Ševčík, František Ondříček and, above all, Karel Hoffman, Josef Suk and Oskar Nedbal who, under his influence, formed the famous Bohemian Quartet.