Top international quartet splits up

The Quator Ysaÿe is breaking up after 30 years.

Trained by members of the Amadeus (Martin Lovett) and the LaSalle (Walter Levin) quartets and named after the great Belgian composer Eugène Ysaÿe, the French group have been among the world’s leading string quartets, playing both core and contemporary repertoire. They recorded for Decca, Philips, Aeon and their own label. They gave their final concert was in Paris on Friday.

Viola player Miguel de Silva, a founding member, told Le Monde: ‘I am very proud of what we did,’ listing the great cycles and world premieres of their epoch: « Je suis très fier de ce que l’on a fait : on a joué les 69 quatuors de Haydn, tout Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, sans parler des créations que nous avons suscitées – Boucourechliev, Dusapin, Tanguy, Krawczyk, Escaich, Cerha… »

The group’s final line-up was: Yovan Markovitch, Miguel Da Silva, Guillaume Sutre and Luc-Marie Aguéra.