The Hagen Quartett is one of the leading chamber ensembles of its native Austria, gaining international attention for its broad repertory and its work with violinist Gidon Kremer. The group has a large recording catalog, mostly on Deutsche Grammophon and, more recently, the Myrios Classics label. The original members of the Hagen Quartett were siblings Lukas (first violin), Angelika (first violin), Veronika (viola), and Clemens (cello) Hagen, all of Salzburg, Austria. Their family was musical, and they had played together since they were children. They studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and abroad in Basel, Switzerland, Hannover, Germany, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in the U.S. The four siblings launched the Hagen Quartett (sometimes billed in English as the Hagen Quartet or Hagen String Quartet) in 1981. Their teachers included violist Hatto Beyerle in Europe and the members of the LaSalle Quartet in the U.S. Other influences included the early music conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the contemporary music-oriented string player and conductor Gidon Kremer; the result was a group that, although it often performed mainstream 19th century works, had a repertory ranging from Bach to new music. The Hagen Quartet scored a breakthrough at the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in 1981, winning several prizes, and at the Portsmouth String Quartet Competition in 1982, where a first prize entitled the group to perform at London's Wigmore Hall. The quartet released its debut album in 1984 on the London label, joining pianist András Schiff on Schubert's Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 ("Trout"). Two years later, the group moved to Deutsche Grammophon for an album of Schubert string quartets. Angelika Hagen left the quartet and was replaced first by Annette Bik and, in 1987, by Rainer Schmidt. The other three Hagen siblings were still part of the group as of the mid-2020s. The Hagen Quartett has performed in major European music capitals and in Tokyo, and it has been especially active in the U.S., where it has appeared in New York (at the 92nd Street Y), Washington, Cleveland, and other cities, as well as Montreal, Canada. It continues to be based in Salzburg and plays an important role in that city's musical life, teaching at the Salzburg Mozarteum. The quartet's collaborators are a distinguished group that includes composer and pianist György Kurtág, pianists Maurizio Pollini and Mitsuko Uchida, and clarinetist Sabine Meyer. The Hagen Quartett continued to record for Deutsche Grammophon into the 2010s but also began recording for Myrios Classics in 2010. By 2023, when the group released an album of clarinet quintets by Mozart and Jörg Widmann on Myrios Classics, its recording catalog comprised some 35 albums. ~ James Manheim, Rovi