Lener String Quartet

The Léner String Quartet, sometimes written the Lehner String Quartet, was a string quartet of Hungarian origin, founded in Budapest in 1918, which for most of its pre-war career operated in or from London. They appeared at the Royal Albert Hall, London on three occasions between 1922 and 1926. They also performed in New York, Amsterdam, and elsewhere in Europe. The Léner made the first complete recorded cycle of Beethoven quartets.

The original founding lineup of the Quartet, which lasted until their break-up at the start of World War II, was as follows:

1st violin

2nd violin

Viola

Cello

In later manifestations of the ensemble, Paul Rolland (viola) and Laszlo Varga (cello) were players in the Léner Quartet.

Jenö Léner was born at Szabadka, Hungary (later annexed to Yugoslavia), on 24 June 1894. He studied at the Royal High School for Music in Budapest. He founded the quartet in 1918 and was its leader.

The Léner Quartet recorded extensively during the 1920s and 1930s for Columbia Records, a partnership which received a strong impetus from the centenary of Beethoven's death in 1927, when a core of the Beethoven quartets were recorded or begun (L series). This was followed up in 1928 with the Schubert centenary, for which the Léner recorded the Octet. The LX prefix records below were mainly issued between 1933 and 1936. Their principal recordings of complete works (all 78rpm Columbia) in that period are as follows:

Rockport Records (New York) began in 1999 a project to reissue all their recordings on CD. By 2015 5 CDs had been issued, covering Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and Dvořák.

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