Hagen Quartet

{{short description|Austrian string quartet}}

File:Hagen Quartett in Muziekgebouw aan het IJ met Jorg Widmann (cropped).jpg with clarinettist Jörg Widmann]]

The Hagen Quartet is an Austrian string quartet founded in 1981 by four siblings, Lukas, Angelika (first replaced by Annette Bik, who was then replaced by Rainer Schmidt in 1987), Veronika and Clemens, in Salzburg.{{cite news |last=Swed |first=Mark |date=29 October 2014 |title=Hagen Quartet shows exquisite unity in rare SoCal concert |url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-hagen-quartet-review-20141030-column.html |work=Los Angeles Times |location=Los Angeles |access-date=30 January 2018}}{{cite web| title=Hagen Quartett| url=http://www2.deutschegrammophon.com/artist/biography?ART_ID=XHAGE| publisher=Deutsche Grammophon| access-date=3 September 2009| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090603101700/http://www2.deutschegrammophon.com/artist/biography?ART_ID=XHAGE| archive-date=3 June 2009}}{{cite web |last=Schär |first=Florian |date=12 October 2011 |title=Rainer Schmidt vom Hagen Quartett im Interview |url=https://www.classicpoint.net/de/interviews/96-rainer-schmidt-hagenquartett |work=Classicpoint.ch |location=Basel |language=de |access-date=30 January 2018 |archive-date=9 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180109063628/https://www.classicpoint.net/de/interviews/96-rainer-schmidt-hagenquartett |url-status=dead }}

The quartet members are teachers and mentors at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Hochschule für Musik Basel.{{cite web |date=30 January 2018 |title=Hagen Quartet |url=https://myriosmusic.com/pages/hagen-quartett |work=myrios classics |location=Köln |access-date=30 January 2018}} The ensemble made its Salzburg Festival debut in 1984. The complete recordings of the Mozart string quartets were released in 2006.{{cite news |last=Kettle |first=Martin |date=28 January 2015 |title=Hagen Quartet review – Mozart celebrated with sparkling spontaneity |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/28/hagen-quartet-mozart-wigmore-hall |work=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=31 January 2018}} In the 2012–2013 season, the Hagen Quartet performed the complete Beethoven cycle in New York, Tokyo, Paris, London, Salzburg and Vienna.{{cite news |last=Oestreich |first=James R. |date=8 November 2013 |title=All Beethoven, All the Time, in a String Quartet Survey |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/arts/music/hagen-quartet-plays-beethoven-at-92nd-street-y.html |work=The New York Times |location=New York City |access-date=30 January 2018}}

They performed, between December 2013 and August 2017, on the four famous Stradivarius instruments played previously by the Paganini Quartet, the Cleveland String Quartet, and the Tokyo String Quartet, respectively.{{cite web |date=1 November 2017 |title=Stradivarius Paganini Quartet |url=https://www.nmf.or.jp/instruments/eng.html |work=Nippon Music Foundation |location=Tokyo |access-date=29 January 2018}} Those instruments are now being played by the Quartetto di Cremona.