The Endellion String Quartet

BEETHOVEN – String Quartet Op.18 No.2 

MOZART – String Quartet K.421

WEBERN – Six Bagatelles for String Quartet Op.9

TCHAIKOVSKY – String Quartet No.3 Op.30

 

Op.18 No.2 is Beethoven’s most Mozartian, good-natured and elegant of his early quartets; Mozart’s D minor is one of his most intense, tragic and profound works and opens with one of the most memorable of his melodies. Webern’s astonishingly expressive Bagatelles take all of 3½ minutes but Schoenberg describes Webern as being able to ‘express a novel in a single gesture, joy in a  single indrawn breath …’ In contrast to this extreme concision is the luxurious  expansiveness of Tchaikovsky’s superb third and final quartet which is as masterly and moving as any of his symphonies.