Session Report: the Chiaroscuro Quartet on Mozart’s ‘Prussian’ Quartets

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That the musicians of the Chiaroscuro Quartet play with classical bows on gut strings and use a historical approach in their work together is no secret. ‘But sometimes it’s actually better not to know,’ says cellist Claire Thirion. Seeing things through a historical lens is, it turns out, far from their primary motivation.

‘I think our main thing is sound, contrast and the message,’ explains first violinist Alina Ibragimova. ‘Every note has to have a message and anything we do stylistically is to help with that message. So we don’t do rules. Everything is done for an expressive reason – there’s no dynamic marking, no little dot on a note that doesn’t have an emotional reason behind it.’…