Chiaroscuro Quartet and Consone Quartet

About

As this year’s Brighton Festival looks both backwards over its first sixty years and forwards to its next sixty, two leading string quartets – one formed over 20 years ago, the other from a younger generation, but both proponents of authentic period styles – each present a masterpiece by one of the twin founders of the genre, Haydn and Mozart, before combining forces, and uniting past, present and future, in the teenage Mendelssohn’s miraculously mature yet evergreen Octet, which was itself the first of its kind.

Established in 2005, led by violinist Alina Ibragimova, and performing on gut strings with historical bows, the Chiaroscuro Quartet was hailed by Gramophone magazine as “a trailblazer for the authentic performance of High Classical chamber music”, while The Observer greeted its unique sound as “a shock to the ears of the best, most arresting kind”.

Formed at the Royal College of Music a decade later, the prize-winning Consone Quartet became the first period-instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and was praised by no less a period pioneer than the late Roger Norrington for its “perfect intonation, tremendous attack and impeccable historical style”.

Supported by Margaret Polmear