Wihan Quartet

The Wihan Quartet earned widespread international recognition for its accounts of quartets by Dvořák, Smetana, and Janáček, together with music by present-day Czech composers including Lubos Krticka and Jiří Pauer. Beethoven nevertheless remains the composer to whom the ensemble has devoted the greatest attention, resulting in several complete live traversals of his quartets and a recording of all 16 works for Nimbus. Although the players concentrate on Beethoven and Czech repertoire, their programs regularly feature Mozart, Schubert, and Schoenberg alongside pieces from many other eras. In 2022 the quartet released a Nimbus Alliance recording devoted to Smetana and Dvořák.

Cellist Ales Kasprík founded the group in 1985 and recruited Leoš Čepický as first violinist, Jan Schulmeister as second violinist, and Jiří Zigmund as violist. Under the guidance of Antonin Kohout, longtime cellist of the Smetana Quartet, the members refined their interpretive approach. Early distinctions included first prize at the 1991 London International String Quartet Competition as well as awards at the Prague Spring Festival and the Osaka Chamber Music Competition & Festa. After the London victory the ensemble began appearing frequently in Britain, later becoming quartet-in-residence at Trinity College of Music and offering instruction at Pro Corda, Leiston Abbey, Suffolk.

Recordings issued in 2000 comprised Hugo Wolf’s D minor String Quartet, Intermezzo, and Italian Serenade, plus Schoenberg’s quartet and Pfitzner’s Second Quartet on the Arco Diva label; the Wolf disc received a Diapason Award. From October 2007 through March 2008 the players presented the complete Beethoven quartets in Prague, performances that Nimbus Records documented for its acclaimed series. The quartet remains active in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom while touring Europe, the United States, East Asia, and Australia; it served as Czech Chamber Music Society Resident Ensemble at Dvořák Hall in Prague’s Rudolfinum during the 2012-2013 season.

Zigmund left the ensemble in 2014 and was replaced on viola by Leoš Čepický’s son, Jakub Čepický. The first recording made by the new formation, issued in 2016, contained music by Dvořák, Janáček, and Suk. In 2017 Michal Kanka succeeded Kasprík as cellist; his initial project with the group, Kol Nidrei: Elegy for Pamela, appeared that same year and presented six new works commemorating Pamela Majaro, a director of the London International String Quartet Competition who had supported the quartet’s British activities after its 1991 triumph. In 2021 the ensemble accompanied pianist Matyás Novák on a recording of Mozart piano concertos. The following year it released a Nimbus Alliance disc featuring Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 (“From My Life”) and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96 (“American”).