Stenhammar Quartet

With a large recording catalog and an international touring résumé, the Stenhammar Quartet has become one of Scandinavia's top string quartets. The group programs and records music by Swedish composers, including its namesake, <a href="spotify:artist:6gfRaesyLupPd0gDQaLwJV">Wilhelm Stenhammar</a>, but has a wide repertory stretching from the Classical period to newly commissioned works. The Stenhammar Quartet has toured as far afield as India and Japan. Its catalog of recordings includes one of the first three string quartets of Kalevi Aho, issued in 2025.

The Stenhammar Quartet gives the date of its founding as 2002; an earlier version of the group was established in 1995. For a time, it used the name New Stenhammar Quartet. The quartet's membership has remained consistent, including violinists Peter Olofsson and Per Öman, violist Tony Bauer, and cellist Mats Olofsson. The Stenhammar Quartet released its debut recording, featuring string quartets by Lars-Erik Larsson, on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Daphne%22">Daphne</a> label in 2008, and the following year, the group received a commendation for contributions to Swedish music from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The quartet moved to the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22BIS%22">BIS</a> label in 2013 and began a cycle of three recordings devoted to the quartets of its namesake, composer <a href="spotify:artist:6gfRaesyLupPd0gDQaLwJV">Wilhelm Stenhammar</a> (1871-1927).

The Stenhammar Quartet has often programmed the music of <a href="spotify:artist:6gfRaesyLupPd0gDQaLwJV">Stenhammar</a> and other Swedish and Scandinavian composers. It has commissioned new works from a mostly Scandinavian group that includes <a href="spotify:artist:35ooFrlJDRGXeuI2fL70d3">Kaija Saariaho</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6FJvb2eSpRIXvmvp1aAw7y">Anders Hillborg</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:00AUnQaXE6XTTZvr7kgNHb">Sven-David Sandström</a>, and Bent Sørensen. The quartet is notable for the extent of its touring, which includes appearances not only at European venues but farther afield in Japan (at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan), Algeria, and India. The group toured Canada in 2024 and planned visits to Greece and Japan for the following year. The Stenhammar Quartet has recorded for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22BIS%22">BIS</a>, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22CPO%22">CPO</a>, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Alba%22">Alba</a> (where it issued an album of quartets by Debussy, Ravel, and Germaine Tailleferre in 2019), and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Dacapo%22">Dacapo</a>. The group's Stenhammar quartet recordings were collected in a set on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22BIS%22">BIS</a> in 2023, and two years later, the quartet returned on that label with the album Kalevi Aho: String Quartets 1-3. ~ James Manheim, Rovi