Ne­gla Pi­ano Quar­tet - Sunday Clas­sics

The Negla Piano Quartet performs works by Hugi Guðmundsson, Amanda Röntgen-Maier, and W.A. Mozart.

The Negla Piano Quartet has been performing together since January 2023 and has attracted attention for its ambitious programming and performances of the highest quality. The quartet consists of violinist Sólveig Steinþórsdóttir, violist Anna Elísabet Sigurðardóttir, cellist Hrafnhildur Marta Guðmundsdóttir, and pianist Þóra Kristín Gunnarsdóttir.

The ensemble's guiding principle is to introduce audiences to new or rarely performed works alongside staples of the chamber music repertoire, and this concert is no exception. The program includes Centuria, a new piano quartet composed by Hugi Guðmundsson for the ensemble in 2025. The average concertgoer may not be familiar with the work of Amanda Röntgen-Maier. She was a respected violinist and composer until her marriage, after which she abandoned her musical career. In recent years, however, her works have been rediscovered and published, including her Piano Quartet, which captivates listeners with its lyrical, beautiful melodies and the engaging interplay between the four instruments. It is easy to understand why composers such as Johannes Brahms, Edvard Grieg, and Clara Schumann admired her and held her work in such high regard.

The members of Negla are forever grateful to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for being the first composer to add the viola—an instrument he himself loved to play—to the classical piano trio, thereby creating the first piano quartets. However, his piano quartets were not initially well received. They were considered too difficult for amateur musicians to perform, and the sheet music sold poorly. As a result, his publisher canceled the contract, even though Mozart had originally been commissioned to write three piano quartets. Today, Mozart's two piano quartets rank among the most beloved works in the chamber music repertoire, and countless piano quartets have been composed in their wake.