If you were looking to recruit a dream team for a piano quartet you need search no further than the Skride sisters Baiba and Lauma from Latvia and French violist Lise Berthaud and German cellist Julian Steckel, as a late substitute.

The Skride Piano Quartet. Photo © Musica Viva Australia

In just two seasons since they formed, the group has taken Europe by storm and earned themselves the soubriquet “super group” from music critics and audiences.
The Skride sisters Baiba, violin, and Lauma, piano, come from a musical family and toured their homeland as kids performing in concerts and festivals. All four musicians have exceptional careers as soloists but as a quartet that is all put aside as they become one, alive to the nuances and moods of the work in hand and above all honest – a quality that Baiba values highly in music-making.

This is not four brilliant individuals we are hearing but a magnificent unit. The music pours from their fingertips with a mixture of naturalness and inspiration, which is extraordinary considering Steckel only joined them just before they set out on this debut Australian tour. The repertoire for...