The Kontra Quartet is today absolutely one of the leading string quartets in Europe. The quartet is constantly busy and gives concerts in the USA, in Japan and all over Europe as well as making recordings, playing in TV productions and giving master classes. In 1973 the quartet was formed around the Hungarian violin virtuoso Anton Kontra, whose dynamic artistic personality has been setting new standards for the violin and music in general in Scandinavia since 1956. Along with three of Denmark’s leading string players, Anton Kontra has now played quartet music for over quarter of a century, and the Kontra Quartet is one of Denmark’s most sought-after ensembles. The Kontra Quartet is particularly active and more or less constantly has the whole quartet literature in its repertoire, while still working intensely to expand it in collaboration with very many of the leading composers of our age. The Kontra Quartet regularly plays cross-over concerts with jazz musicians like Chick Corea, Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Mads Winding. Thanks to a huge recorded output – so far over forty recordings for among other labels BIS, EMI, Philips, Columbia and Dacapo – the quartet has left its unmistakable mark on all genres of the repertoire: for example complete recordings of the quartets of Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Kodaly, Vagn Holmboe, Niels W. Gade, Rued Langgaard, Poul Ruders, Hans Abrahamsen, Per Nørgaard and others. Particularly worth singling out is the recording of Vagn Holmboe’s collected quartets, which has received innumerable awards and has been crucial to the composer’s international breakthrough. The members of the quartet are Anton Kontra (1st violin), Boris Samsing (2nd violin), Peter Fabricius (viola) and Hans Nygaard (cello).
04/03/2011 Classics Today (9/9)
01/01/2011 International Record Review
17/12/2010 Classique Info
01/11/2010 OPUS
01/11/2010 Ensemble
13/10/2010 Crescendo
19/09/2010 Musicweb International
06/09/2010 Svenska Dagbladet
03/11/1997 BBC Music Magazine
15/01/1994 Gramophone
15/01/1994
15/07/1992 BBC Radio
20/05/1992 Fanfare
15/05/1992 HiFi Vision
15/05/1992 American Record Guide
CD 8.207001 (2010)
7 CD box set of all Holmboe's string quartets in the highly acclaimed recordings by the Kontra Quartet
CD 8.226101-02 (2009)
An outstanding introduction to the clear-sighted master of 20th-century Nordic music
CD 8.226528 (2007)
New chamber works by Denmark’s versatile crossover veteran
CD 8.224211 (2003)
Quartets 3, 5 and 6 and Schmidt’s early Piano Quartet
CD 8.224210 (2003)
Chamber music from 50 years, recorded in the presence of the composer
CD 8.224131 (2001)
This unsurpassed series concludes with Holmboe’s very last work, completed by his pupil Per Nørgård
CD 8.224128 (2001)
Penultimate CD in the definitive series with String Quartets 17, 19 and 20, written in the 1980s
CD 8.224137 (2000)
Mesterlige værker af en pioner og enegænger fra den serielle musik
CD 8.224127 (1999)
Strygekvartet nr. 13-15, skrevet i en intens periode midt i 1970’erne
DCCD 9302A-B (1999)
CD 8.224101 (1998)
Three strong quartets from the beginning of the 1970s – a very fruitful period for Holmboe
CD 8.224073 (1997)
Grand recordings of String Quartets 7, 8 and 9, composed in the mid-1960s
CD 8.224060 (1997)
Three key works by the caustic, energetic absurdist of modern Danish music
CD 8.224026 (1996)
String Quartets 2, 5 and 6, the starting shots for Holmboe’s immersion in the genre
DCCD 9203 (1993)
DCCD 9006 (1992)
DCCD 9113 (1992)