Saturday 4 February 2012

7.45 pm
at the Middleton Hall, University of Hull

Vanbrugh String Quartet

This celebrated Irish ensemble, ranking amongst Europe’s greatest string quartets, has for 25 years been resident quartet for RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcasting service, and its members founded the internationally acclaimed West Cork Chamber Music Festival. Their programme contains one of the finest of Beethoven’s early quartets and Schubert’s great Death and the Maiden quartet, alongside striking modern works by Shostakovich and Arvo Pärt.

…the kind of experience one encounters on only a few occasions in a lifetime… only one or two ensembles in the world plumb such depths The Strad (on the Vanbrugh’s Beethoven cycle in London, 2010)

Each performance flows naturally and comfortably; nothing ever seems self-conscious or contrived and there is real maturity and good musical common sense in everything they do The Guardian