Idil Biret’s chamber music performances are relatively rare. Most importantly, she played Beethoven’s violin sonatas Nos. 5, 7 and 9 with Yehudi Menuhin at the İstanbul Festival in July 1973. In 1975, she played all the five Beethoven cello sonatas with Maurice Gendron. With the London String Quartet, in 1980, Biret played the Schumann and Brahms Piano Quintets at the Queen Elisabeth Hall in London, later at the İstanbul Festival and then recorded the Brahms Quintet as well as the Mahler Piano Quartet with the LSQ. In 2011, she played in concerts and recorded Berlioz’s Harold in Italie in Liszt’s piano transcription and Brahms’ 2nd Viola Sonata with Ruşen Güneş. In 2014, she played in concerts and recorded the Schumann Piano Quintet with the Borusan Quartet of Turkey. The same year, she recorded the two cello sonatas of Brahms with Roderic von Bennigsen. Finally, in 2019, Biret played and recorded Mendelssohn’s 1st Piano Trio and the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio with Irina Nikotina and Julya Krepak. These are some of the memorable chamber music performances of her career.

“Yehudi Menuhin had played with Idil Biret three of the most well known sonatas of Beethoven for violin and piano at the İstanbul Festival in 1973. Their concert on that day had turned out to be pure poetry.” Zeynep Oral MİLLİYET (Turkey) 1999

“I had never heard the piano part of the introduction to the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 done so well before.” Yehudi Menuhin to Idil Biret after their performance of the Sonata in July 1973

“London String Quartet’s South Bank program on Saturday night also brought the Turkish pianist Idil Biret to join them in quintets by Schumann and Brahms… Miss Biret’s piano playing was securely blended with that of the quartet, ranging from the necessary assertive character at times to an expressive poetic quality in some of the quieter passages. So impressive a performance, which induced a new admiration for the works.” Noël Goodwin THE TIMES (UK) 1980