Marmen Quartet wins BBC Music Magazine Award

The Marmen Quartet has won the BBC Music Magazine Award for chamber music for its debut recording of Bartók and Ligeti on BIS. Violist Bryony Gibson-Cornish and cellist Sinéad O'Halloran collected the award at a ceremony on Wednesday 22 April at Kings Place, London. 

The magazine gave the release a five-star review and wrote: ‘The Marmen Quartet’s first album for BIS Records is an auspicious debut, since the four musicians do not only navigate some of the 20th century’s most challenging chamber repertoire with expert ensemble. More, they seem to have assimilated the music into their cells, performing it with an energetic vitality and colour that transforms both composers at their thorniest into riveting storytellers.’

In our interview with violinist Laia Valentin Braun, he said of performing Ligeti: ‘We sometimes hear from promoters, ‘Oh, we’re not sure audiences are going to like that.’ But whenever we have played this music, the audience has loved it. The First Quartet is so approachable – more so than a late Beethoven quartet – because the images and musical ideas are so strong. It’s written as one movement, but there are variations which have very clear characters, moving quickly between them. It’s entertaining and theatrical, with extreme dynamics, and all easily understandable. The Second Quartet is more challenging, but its five movements are quite short and all have clear characters and sounds. It’s colourful and diverse, and the audience response has always been very good. At the end, people often say, ‘I didn’t expect I would like this as much as I did.’ But I’m not surprised that people like it because it’s such good music and the ideas are so strong and clear.’