Signum Quartett

The Signum Quartett – violinists Florian Donderer and Annette Walther, violist Xandi van Dijk and violoncellist Thomas Schmitz – have established a significant and still growing reputation in the world of strings quartets for the past decade and a half, garnering great acclaim with recordings of traditional repertoire as well as more modern, occasionally left-field literature. They play renowned international stages alongside collaborators such as Nils Mönkemeyer, Dominique Horwitz, Jörg Widmann, Daniel Ottensamer, Nicolas Altstaedt und Elisabeth Leonskaj.
 
Their first appearance for ECM’s New Series, the striking performances on Erkki-Sven Tüür’s chamber music recording Lost Prayers (2020), was immediately awarded classical album of the year at the Estonian Music Awards 2021. Gramophone has described the quartet’s sound as “passionate, often brilliant, but also clear and lean” and their sensitive approach to a wide variety of styles is put [...]
The Signum Quartett – violinists Florian Donderer and Annette Walther, violist Xandi van Dijk and violoncellist Thomas Schmitz – have established a significant and still growing reputation in the world of strings quartets for the past decade and a half, garnering great acclaim with recordings of traditional repertoire as well as more modern, occasionally left-field literature. They play renowned international stages alongside collaborators such as Nils Mönkemeyer, Dominique Horwitz, Jörg Widmann, Daniel Ottensamer, Nicolas Altstaedt und Elisabeth Leonskaj.
 
Their first appearance for ECM’s New Series, the striking performances on Erkki-Sven Tüür’s chamber music recording Lost Prayers (2020), was immediately awarded classical album of the year at the Estonian Music Awards 2021. Gramophone has described the quartet’s sound as “passionate, often brilliant, but also clear and lean” and their sensitive approach to a wide variety of styles is put further in evidence on the Signum’s return to the label, 2025’s A Dark Flaring. On the album, the quartet presents a unique programme dedicated to South African composers, born in the 20th century, whose works for string quartet are united by the way they blend respect for the past with an instinct for the future in a wide-flung idiomatic scope.
 
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