The Arisva quartet is the permanent quartet of Cologne Classical Ensemble. It was established under the musical leader and first violinist Alexander Prushinskiy together with Svetlana Shtraub as 2nd violinist, altist Aliaksandr Senazhenski and cellist Risto Rajakorpi.
The focus of the musical work of the quartet lays on the large chamber works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Dmitri Shostakovich. This is where the Arisva quartet shows its brilliant skill of musical interpretations with great clarity and depth. Another focus are the great Russian composers which are less frequently played in Western Europe like Alexander Glazunov or Anton Arensky. To show these masterpieces to a wider audience is a particular concern of the quartet. Because the quartet's origin was from beginning on in the joint work with the other musicians of the Cologne Classical Ensemble, the Arisva quartet earned early a reputation as a master of chamber music with various styles and formations. As example of this be mentioned are the interpretations of piano quintets by Robert Schumann and Anton Arensky, and the guitar quintets by Luigi Boccherini. This intensive examination of the repertoire reaches far beyond the common and often heard and makes the specificity of the Arisva quartet that thus thrills the audience through a variety that is always consistent and is manifested with the highest artistic standards in music.
From: Westdeutschen Zeitung (WAZ):
Arisva Quartet competes with world-class ensembles
"In Mendelssohn's String Quartet op. 44 one was amazed not only by the exceptionally beautiful, homogeneous sound, but also by the perfection. Nevertheless, the rapidly played corner movements sounded exciting and highly exciting. It is an art to play so quick-tempered and yet precisely and tonally beautiful. The Arisva Quartet thus competed with world-class ensembles."
