Signum Quartet

String Quartet

  • Florian Donderer & Annette Walther, violins
    Xandi van Dijk, viola
    Thomas Schmitz, violoncello

    Performances of unsparing expressivity, intimacy and vitality are hallmarks of the Signum Quartet, pairing music making of the subtlest order with playing of the highest intensity. The dramatic composition of their programs is innovative and distinct and is realized with uncompromising perfection in interpretations of effortless transparency. Rondo Magazine has described Signum as an ensemble who are “enormously intelligent..” and incorporate “…knowledgeable programming…”

    Signum Quartet is commencing their 2022/2023 season with a recital tour, entitled Glimpses, which will see them perform in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ireland. Their recital tour will conclude with the Quartet being featured in the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Ireland. In June 2022, Signum will return to the USA as the feature guest artists at the ENCORE Chamber Music Festival in Ohio and the Princeton Festival in New Jersey. In May 2023, Signum will make their Carnegie Hall debut presenting one of their signature programs including quartet works by Haydn, South African composers Matthijs van Dijk and Priaulx Rainier and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.

    The quartet has been a welcome guest at the Wigmore Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie de Paris, Konzerthaus Vienna, Philharmonie Cologne, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and at the BBC Proms, with partners such as Nils Mönkemeyer, Dominique Horwitz, Jörg Widmann, Daniel Ottensamer, Nicolas Altstaedt and Elisabeth Leonskaja. In 2021 the ensemble will give its debut at Carnegie Hall in New York.

    Intensive studies with the Alban Berg Quartet, Artemis Quartet and the Melos Quartet as well as collaborations with György Kurtág, Walter Levin, Alfred Brendel, Leon Fleisher and Jörg Widmann have shaped the artistic development of the Signum Quartet, which has won numerous awards. The Quartet are recipients of the German Music Competition, Premio Paolo Borciani, London International String Quartet Competition and has been accorded intensive support through being recipients of the BBC New Generation Artists and stART-Programm/ Bayer Kultur.

    The Signum Quartet’s discography is a testament to their stylistic range: Next to the greats of the quartet literature, they have recorded works by Wolfgang Rihm, Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann and Kevin Volans. Their recording of Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Second String Quartet Lost Prayers for ECM won Classical Album of the Year at the Estonian Music Awards 2021. Following their multi-award-winning album Aus der Ferne (Diapason D’Or, Opus Klassik), the Signum Quartet continues its Schubert cycle for PENTATONE with Ins stille Land, deepening its exploration of the fascinating connections between his string quartets and songs. Their newest album was received with critical acclaim, with The Strad hailing Signum’s recording of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” as “…up there with the best from a crowded field…”

    *Updated February 2022

  • November 13, 2020: Signum Quartet Releases ‘Ins Stille Land’
    - Spotify

    June 7, 2019: Signum Quartet Nominated Twice For The Opus Klassik Awards
    - Idagio

  • THE STRAD RECOMMENDS: SIGNUM QUARTET: LEBENSMUTH
    Four of Schubert’s wildest children, in a persuasive performance by the Signum Quartet that matches their youthful confidence and ambition. The virtues of this ensemble come to the fore in D887. Its combined tone is rich and well nourished, even in the ghostly shiverings of the opening movement, the gleam around the edge of the sound not diminishing the desolation of the bleak slow movement. The players’ coordination is breathtaking both in terms of ensemble and intonation, and their observation of dynamics and articulation guarantees that the work’s emotional impact is fully realised.
    -David Threasher, The Strad

    SIGNUM QUARTETT SUGGESTS NEW WAYS OF PLAYING SCHUBERT ON ‘INS STILLE LAND’
    Broadly speaking, the quartet has selected and juxtaposed the songs and quartets to show the composer’s developing sense of alienation and death; in doing so, they suggest an affecting new way of playing and listening to Schubert…Prepare for a deeply moving experience.
    – Laurence Vittes, Strings Magazine

    THE BEST CLASSICAL RELEASES OF MARCH 2018
    “The drama of this quartet is more intimate than in Rosamunde, but sounds just as gripping in the hands of the Cologne-based Signum Quartet. The ensemble demonstrates even finer calibrations of its expressive range on settings of five Schubert lieder — including the heart-rending “Die Götter Griechenlands” and the eponymous “Aus der Ferne” — arranged by its violist, Xandi van Dijk”
    – Zev Kane, WQXR

    REVIEW: SIGNUM QUARTET, CHICHESTER CHAMBER CONCERTS
    “The Signum Quartet played both works superbly, drawing every nuance out of the music with great finesse and boldness”
    – Phil Hewitt, Worthing Herald

    SIGNUM QUARTETT – SCHUBERT – AUS DER FERNE
    The program makes audible the close connection between Schubert’s quartet and song compositions, which connection stems on the one hand from the fact that both kinds of compositions were performed in the same circles of friends and admirers of the too early diseased composer, and on the other hand arose from Schubert’s strong inclination for a secondary exploitation of songs in favor of instrumental compositions. To reuse melodies in his instrumental compositions secondarily.
    – HighResAudio

  • 2024-25 Season Sample Programs

    Lebensmuth | Courage to live
    Haydn: String Quartet in C major Op. 20 No. 2 Hob.III:32
    Schubert: An die Nachtigall D 497 (arr.: X. van Dijk)
    Lebensmuth D 883
    Im Frühling D 882

    Rainier (1903-1986): Quartet for Strings (1939)
    ***
    Schubert: String Quartet in G major D 887

    The Schubert Experience
    Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor D 70
    Selection of Lieders: Du bist die Ruh, Lachen und Weinen, Aus der Ferne, Frühlingsglaube, Schwanengesang i.a.
    ***
    Schubert: String Quartet in D minor D 810 “Death and the Maiden” or
    String Quartet in G major D887

    “So That One Could Never Return” - Janácek's quartets in new contexts
    Janácek: So That One Could Never Return* The lover who killed**
    Tolstoy (1828 - 1910): Waltz (arr. X.v. Dijk)
    Janácek: String Quartet No. 1 (1923) - Inspired by Tolstoy's “Kreutzer Sonata”
    Janácek: I Am Waiting for You!* Parting**
    Fokkens (*1975): “Glimpses of a half-forgotten future” (2012)
    ***
    Janácek: The Golden Ring* What sky is that?**
    Thomas Adès (*1971) Arcadiana for string quartet Op. 12
    Janácek: Love, Only blind fate (arr.: X. van Dijk)
    Janácek: String Quartet No. 2 (1928) "Intimate Letters"

    Fragments of an eternity

    Mozart: Adagio and Fugue in C minor K 546
    Robert Fokkens (1975): “Glimpses of a half-forgotten future” (2012)
    Webern: Langsamer Satz for string quartet (1905)
    Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor D 703 (fragment)
    ***
    Bach: Contrapunctus 18 from: “The Art of the Fugue” BWV 1080 (fragment)
    K. Gourzi (*1962): String Quartet No. 2: “P-llion – nine fragments of an eternity”
    Beethoven: Große Fuge in B-flat major Op. 133

    Love letters
    “What would I not do for the love of you, my own Clara!” Robert Schumann
    Haydn: String Quartet op. 76 No. 4 B-flat major “Sunrise”
    Janácek: String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters”
    Schumann: String Quartet op. 41 No.3 A major

    Birdsong
    “The earth has music for those who listen” William Shakespeare
    Haydn: String Quartet op. 33 No.3 C major “The Bird”
    Schumann: String Quartet op. 41 No. 2 F major
    Dvorak: String Quartet No. 13 op 105 G major

    Dreams and desires
    “Keep true to the dreams of your youth.” Friederich Schiller
    Haydn: String Quartet op. 50 No. 5 F major “The Dream”
    Thomas Adés: Arcadiana
    Ravel” String Quartet F major

    Dark Dissonances
    “the greatest emptiness and desert in my head and heart” Felix Mendelssohn
    Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 K 465 C major “Dissonance”
    Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6 op. 80 f minor
    Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 e minor “From my Life”

    2023-24 SEASON SAMPLE PROGRAMS

    Program I: ‘Tolstoy’s Waltz’
    Franz Schubert: Auf dem Wasser zu singen (arr. X.v. Dijk)
    Erwin Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet
    Matthijs van Dijkk (*1983) : (rage) rage against the (2018)
    Leo Tolstoy: Waltz (arr. X.v. Dijk)
    Leos Janácek: String Quartet No. 1 (1923) "Kreutzer Sonata"
    Franz Schubert: String Quartet No. 1 (1923) "Kreutzer Sonata"

    *Matthijs van Dijk is one of South Africa's most important contemporary composers. (rage) rage against the, written for the Signum Quartett, was inspired by Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” and is loosely based on thematic material from Led Zeppelin’s “In my time of dying”.

    Program II: 'Aus der Ferne' (From Afar)
    Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in C major Op. 20 No. 2 Hob.III:32
    Franz Schubert: Aus der Ferne
    Franz Schubert: Frühlingsglaube (arr. X.v. Dijk)
    Franz Schubert: Schwanengesang D 744 (arr. X.v. Dijk)
    Priaulx Rainier*: Quartet for Strings (1939)
    Franz Schubert: String Quartet in G major D 887

    *Priaulx Rainier is without a doubt one of the most important female composers of the 20th century. She was born in 1903 in South Africa and studied the violin at the RAM in London, later composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 1943 Priaulx Rainier was appointed professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.

    Her Quartet for Strings (1939) was premiered in 1944 in London, and the Amadeus Quartet recorded it in 1951 for Decca, which can be heard here. Priaulx Rainier composed a number of solo concerti, including works for Jacqueline du Pre and Yehudi Menuhin, who premiered her violin concerto in 1977 at the BBC Proms.

    *Updated January 2024