"I have the impression that France is all too ready to allow apathy choke the glories of their late-romantic musical culture. Against the trends, Arion have issued this diamond of a disc. I urge you strongly to seek out his sheerly magical music."

Rob Barnett - Classic Music Web (UK) - Classical Reviews, 12/2001

Len Mullenger

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"...His first quartet, created in 1928 with great success belongs to the same family as Ravel's. The meandering theme of first movement "vif", the pizzicato and the rhythm of the second, the inner quality of the "Grave" and the tense vigour of the finale, all stem from same source, but with a difference: Bonnal, more than his elder, seeks an architectural amplitude."

Jacques Bonnaure - Répertoire 10/2000 - recommended

"... When listening to those two strings quartets, you sense a first rate composer who masters the difficult art of the string quartet, and few French composers were able to do so in the 20th century. Such balance in the proportions, such sense of clarity, such variety in the succession of atmospheres. The four partners of the Quatuor Debussy play with sensuality and fervour, making sure that they fully bring out the musical qualities of Ermend Bonnal and his two gorgeous masterpieces."

Télérama ffff, 11/2000

"... His career as organist and teacher in Bayonne (where Maurice Ohana was his pupil) no doubt kept the composer of these two quartets away from the celebrity he actually deserved. Thanks to the harmonious and sensitive rendering of the Quatuor Debussy, he finds his reward at last."

Le Monde de la Musique - CHOC du Monde de la Musique

"The two quartets are perfect examples of the harmonious palette of the composer, both rich and transparent emphasising with admirable precision the melodic design and his tender and gracious lyricism."

François Laurent - Diapason, 11/2000

Extract from an article entitled "Letter to an unknown (musician)"

"Endowed with an exceptional musical technique, Bonnal has never written the music of an epigone."

Karol Beffa - Classica, 11/2000

And finally an appreciation by the great contemporary

composer and pianist Olivier GREIF (1950 – 2000):

"Magnificent and unrecognized, those two adjectives could easily define Bonnal's entire work. This outstanding composer, who was also a remarkable person, is undoubtedly the victim of his own natural discretion.

Bonnal is a very personal composer who combines faultless musical skill, richness of chromatic palette, contrapuntal readability, a sharp sense of form and development, clarity of instrumental texture; he is genuinely original. This originality drawn from the musical sources of the Basque country – that he cherished above all – was an ideal tool for his expression.

This return to popular sources, which can also be identified in an invented imaginary folklore perfectly integrated into sophisticated musical language, places Bonnal in the range of a much wider movement, by the side of BARTOK, KODALY, DE FALLA, VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS or even SIBELIUS".

Olivier GREIF (quoted in Bulletin du Concours de quatuors d'Evian 1999)

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