Edward Bhesania visits Milton Court Concert Hall, London, UK, for the recital of Mendelssohn, Haydn and Beethoven on 4 December 2025
The professional careers of these two quartets – the Chiaroscuro (playing on gut strings with period bows) and the Consone (playing on period instruments) – began a decade apart, yet their blend was seamless as they combined for Mendelssohn’s Octet.
Sounding more like a string orchestra than salon ensemble, the musicians fulfilled Mendelssohn’s brief that the dynamic contrasts be ‘more strongly emphasised than usual in pieces of this character’, though the sheer vigour of the playing sometimes had the double edge of being as exhausting as it was thrilling. If the Andante could have taken more spaciousness and depth of feeling, the Scherzo bristled with lightness and pin-sharp precision.
The concert opened with the Consone Quartet playing the fifth of Haydn’s ‘Russian’ Quartets op.33. The easeful, conversational tone of the first movement befitted the G major Quartet’s nickname ‘How do you do?’, while its Scherzo offered lifted, dance-like elegance.
The Chiaroscuro Quartet then played Beethoven’s op.18 no.3 in D major. The group’s agility (as witness the thunderous Presto finale) and intensity (the vanishing chords that close the Andante) were beyond question, but there were moments when its approach to tone and articulation seemed calculated for effect and, invigorating though the results were, I sometimes hankered after cream rather than balsamic vinegar on my strawberries.
EDWARD BHESANIA
Read: Consone Quartet: it’s not every day that a period string quartet plays music by a living composer
Read: Play of light and shadow: The Chiaroscuro Quartet at 20
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