... for art, when Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo competed in painting, Goethe and Schiller competed in poetry and ... Haydn and Mozart competed in composition!
    
In 1781, Haydn wrote his six string quartets op. 33 in his own words "in a completely new and special way" - in a sense, model examples of this central genre of the classical period. They not only aroused Mozart's admiration, but also inspired him to respond. Mozart dedicated his answers, the quartets K. 387, 421, 428, 458, 464 and 465, in 1785 to none other than his fatherly friend (which is why they are also known as the "Haydn Quartets"). Haydn was impressed, but also felt challenged in his very own metier and gave a new answer with the six "Prussian Quartets" op. 50, written between February and November 1787. (The fact that Mozart also composed "Prussian Quartets" in 1789/90 should not go unmentioned ...)

Mozart prefaced his C major Quartet K. 465 - one of the "Haydn Quartets" mentioned above - with an extended slow introduction in a minor key. The work owes its nickname "Dissonance Quartet" to the unusual tonal frictions resulting from the course of the voices. The Italian composer and Mozart contemporary Giuseppe Sarti even raised the question of whether the "composer had perhaps done it" "to cover the player with shame"; a Viennese critic echoed this sentiment: "too strongly flavoured - and what palate can stand that for long". Haydn, on the other hand, liked it ... When the Allegro section begins after the introductory bars, one initially thinks that the heavens have opened. However, abrupt accents and - here too - dissonant chords maintain the dramatic tension. The minuet and finale also repeatedly experience violent "disturbances" and chromatic enrichments. The slow movement can be characterised as "deeply felt" - one could also call it "melancholy". Mozart would have "heard the harmony of creation", said the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, "to which the darkness also belongs, but in which the darkness is not darkness ..., also the gloom that does not degenerate into tragedy, the infinite melancholy ..."

Dvořák's most popular quartet is certainly the "American"; the last two, however, with opus numbers 105 and 106, are often referred to as "highlights", although it is often stated that they are aimed more at connoisseurs. Both quartets are not least documents of his return home. In September 1892, he had taken up the post of director at the New York National Conservatory. However, despite all his successes overseas, Dvořák was relieved when he left New York in April 1895 and soon had home soil under his feet again: "I haven't touched the pen since I came from America ... Here in Vysoká I'm sorry for the time and I'd rather enjoy God's nature!" he wrote in a letter dated 30 July. When he felt like working again, Dvořák abandoned the A flat major quartet op. 105 he had begun and first put the sibling on paper in November and December: "I work so easily and succeed so well that I couldn't wish for anything better. I have just finished my new quartet in G major ..." (23 December 1895). Musicologists praise the work as a summit achievement because the "natural inspiration" is audibly complemented by the "artificial level of realisation". Yet for all the attention paid to the harmonic richness (including in the development section of the first movement), the varied and sometimes contrapuntal procedures in the Adagio, the folk-song-like singing and dancing in the two trios of the Scherzo or the thematic interweaving (for example, the quotation of the first movement in the stormy finale), this is above all typical Dvořák: Melodies that seem to come straight from the heart, an inexhaustible gift for invention, a nationally coloured arch-musicianism ...

Since the ensemble was founded in 1996, the Israeli musicians have undergone a maturing process that today allows them to draw on a broad repertoire and a corresponding tonal depth without sacrificing their energy and curiosity for the unknown. Its warm, full, almost human sound and the balance between high and low voices allows the ensemble to work out the subtleties in the classical repertoire and to dedicate itself to new genres and epochs with both a firm and open mind - and to constantly strive for tonal perfection. The Jerusalem Quartet is a regular and popular guest on the world's major concert stages. Highlights of the past season include a Beethoven quartet cycle at Wigmore Hall in London, a Bartok cycle at the Salzburg Festival, the third annual string quartet seminar in Crans Montana in Switzerland and, since 2022, a residency at the Jerusalem Academy of Music.

Since 2005, the Jerusalem Quartet has released 16 albums on harmonia mundi, which have been honoured with numerous awards such as the Diapason d'Or or the BBC Music Magazine Award for chamber music. The latest recordings include an album that sheds light on Yiddish music in Central Europe between the world wars (including a selection of Yiddish cabaret songs from Warsaw in the 1920s with Israeli soprano Hila Baggio) and the second (and final) album in the complete recording of his Bartók cycle.

Highlights of the 2023/24 season included tours of Sweden, the UK, Germany and Switzerland as well as concerts at the biennials in Paris, Amsterdam and Lisbon. In addition to the regular quartet programmes, the Jerusalem Quartet brought the "Yiddish Cabaret" back to the stage, played a Bartók cycle at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and toured North America in October 2023 and April 2024. In June 2024, the ensemble travelled to China, Korea and Japan and performed in important halls such as the Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the Seoul Arts Center.