Review: The Hagen Quartet Delivers a Pathetic Excuse for Music Making

Concert at Carnegie Hall, March 6th, 2024

Back in the the 80s, classical music labels had their de facto official string quartets that they would always market rather aggressively. Columbia Records (now Sony Classical) had the Juilliard Quartet, RCA had the Guarneri Quartet, Decca had the Fitzwilliam and the Takacs, and Deutsche Grammophon had four: the Amadeus, Melos, Emerson, and Hagen Quartets. 

When the Hagen Quartet first started recording for Deutsche Grammophon, they made some really excellent recordings that were full of intensity, fire, and beautiful, characterful playing. They played together as a well oiled machine. Just listen to their beautiful Haydn Op. 20 recordings, their Schubert Quintet with Heinrich Schiff, or even their complete Mozart Quartets. They were an exemplar of the new school of string quartet playing modeled after ensembles like the Juilliard Quartet, but with a distinctive warmth to their sound. 

Their new recordings aren’t terrible either—though they’re nowhere near as exciting, and they seem to have lost interest in playing with each other. However, when I went to go see them a couple weeks ago at Zankel Hall, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. They’re still widely acclaimed as a great string quartet, and they were doing some of my favorite repertoire: the Beethoven String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor Op. 132, Haydn Quartet Op. 76 No. 3 (nicknamed the “Emperor”) and Bartok String Quartet No. 2. What could go wrong?

What I experienced was one of the worst concerts of my life.

In all fairness, it was not entirely their fault. Well, actually, that’s not wholly true. The first violinist’s (Lukas Hagen) horse hair on his bow was too long, which, combined with the humidity, made it impossible for him to really dig into the string without getting the sound of the wood since he could not tighten his bow fully. That effectively ruined his sound for the duration of the concert. For works that are so first-violin heavy, such as the Haydn Op. 76 No. 3, it was incredibly distracting and difficult to listen to the music. I’m not the only one that noticed it, too. One of the people sitting next to me said that he would give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the humidity was messing up his instrument—which is understandable, but still no excuse for sloppy and careless playing, which showed itself independently of Lukas Hagen’s bow hair. Throughout the entire program, I found myself getting more and more annoyed with Lukas Hagen’s violin playing. His mannerisms, such as his completely affected use portamenti (which are small slides between notes) partially ruined the Beethoven Op. 132, although not completely; his other quartet mates would finish the job. I actually moved to some empty seats in the third row so that I could hear the quartet better, and I heard two other people during the performance laughing because it was so obvious and startlingly out of place. At the end of the concert, they both remarked on how distracting it was. But, for Lukas Hagen, there was no excuse for his shoddy, incredibly affected, out of tune playing, and, above all, his lack of coordination with the rest of the ensemble. As the quartet leader, it is necessary for him to ensure that the interpretation of a given work is agreed upon by all the musicians. For works in the STANDARD STRING QUARTET REPERTOIRE, this is not a difficult task and is indicative of a severe lack of competency, taste, care, or all three. It was the worst demonstration of first violin quartet playing that I have ever seen or heard in my life.

However, the worst thing about this concert was undoubtedly the cellist, Clemens Hagen. Clemens Hagen possesses neither a luscious tone nor a particularly captivating playing style. This is not the end of the world, as there are many quartet cellists that suffer from these problems (Claus Adam, Peter Wiley, Martin Lovett, and Paul Watkins, just to name a few) and still manage to be really fantastic ensemble musicians. But the one thing that Clemens Hagen lacks that really writes him off as a good musician is his complete lack of taste. He would routinely play with no vibrato in some places and with lots of it in others in a way which was clearly not deliberate nor well thought out, and in utter disagreement with the style of vibrato employed by the rest of the quartet. It was, to say the least, infuriating. His cold tone and inconsistency of choice made his part in the Beethoven Op. 132 garish and out of place, even to the point where it detracted from the sheer harmonic and contrapuntal beauty of Beethoven’s writing. His very first entrance in the same work stuck out like a sore thumb because of its ugliness. Most problematic, though, was his volume. His cello playing was so incredibly loud during the entire concert, even where the composer marks pianissimo or when it is just supporting the other voices with the bass line. It got to the point where the middle voices (the second violin and viola) were rendered completely inaudible by both Lukas and Clemens Hagen in places where the interesting harmonies or even the melodies were in the inner voices. Clemens Hagen needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and seriously analyze why his playing has become so self-centered and strange, and then maybe, just maybe, he can return to quartet playing. His playing was inexcusable, and it didn’t even sound good from a timbral point of view.

This kind of segues into my next point—this quartet is devoid of balance, ensemble clarity, fundamental understanding of the music, and intonation (you know, kind of the main reasons why you want to hear great string quartets), which rendered even the greatest masterworks almost unlistenable. Throughout the entire performance, I could not hear either Rainer Schmidt (the second violinist) or Veronika Hagen (the violist), which is a real shame, because some of the best viola writing and second violin writing is in both the Bartok Quartet No. 2 and the Beethoven Op. 132. When I did hear them, I had to strain my ears and try to ignore the horrible playing from the outer voices, and when I finally heard the inner voices, I wished I hadn’t. Rainer Schmidt’s playing was marked by sloppy intonation (especially in parts where he had the countermelody to the first violin)  and a serious lack of projection, while Veronika Hagen’s playing was, for the most part, completely inaudible unless she did something odd, such as putting an accent on a note where it didn’t belong.

The Hagen Quartet, a prestigious and well-respected ensemble, have no right to make music that lacks such taste and basic intelligence. Even if they did, they certainly shouldn’t be charging for it. Their playing is marred by serious lacks in judgment, communication, balance, and ideas about where the music should go. This has been evidenced on their newer recordings as well. What I and many others saw here is a quartet whose time has now passed and has sadly grown more and more mannered and lazy as the days go by. I have heard string quartets consisting of teenagers play with greater conviction and genuine feeling for the music than the Hagens did. It’s time for them to take their final bow and retire from the international stage. There is no excuse to be scamming people out of their money under the auspices of great chamber music playing.

The Hagen Quartet performed in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, March 6th, 2024.