Clemens Hagen

Cellist Clemens Hagen comes from a family of musicians in Salzburg and began playing the cello at the age of six. Two years later, he began his studies at the Mozarteum University and later studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel. His teachers include Wilfried Tachezi and Heinrich Schiff. In addition to numerous first prizes, he received the Special Prize of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Dr Karl Böhm Prize in 1983.

As a soloist, Clemens Hagen has performed with internationally renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Camerata Salzburg, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, SWR Symphony Orchestra Freiburg, the Cleveland Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, working with conductors including Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Claudio Abbado, Franz Welser-Möst, Ingo Metzmacher, Sándor Végh, Daniel Harding, Zoltán Kocsis and Sylvain Cambreling.

His discography includes live recordings of the Brahms Double Concerto with Gidon Kremer, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, and the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Thomas Zehetmair, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Clemens Hagen has recorded the complete works for cello and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven with Paul Gulda and those of Robert Schumann with Stefan Vladar. His most recent CD features Josef Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major.

Chamber music is an essential part of Clemens Hagen’s musical activities. Central to this is the Hagen Quartet, with whom he has performed worldwide for over 35 years and recorded more than 45 CDs for Deutsche Grammophon. His other chamber music partners include Gidon Kremer, Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Maxim Vengerov, Christian Tetzlaff, Yuja Wang, Evgeny Kissin, Mitsuko Uchida, Martha Argerich, Hélène Grimaud, Kirill Gerstein, Stefan Vladar, Leif Ove Andsnes and Sabine Meyer.

In 2003, Claudio Abbado invited Clemens Hagen to join his newly founded Lucerne Festival Orchestra, of which he remains a member. He has been the cellist of the Vienna Piano Trio since 2018.

Clemens Hagen has taught violoncello and chamber music at the Mozarteum University since 1988, initially as an assistant to Heinrich Schiff. Following his habilitation, he was appointed Professor of Violoncello in 2003.

Clemens Hagen plays a cello made by Antonio Stradivari in 1698.