Founded in 1994 by the exceptional violin soloist (and conductor) Thomas Zehetmair, the Quartet has been praised worldwide for its finesse and drama. The group has given several acclaimed International Festival recitals in recent years.

They bring together two much-loved chamber works, both of them complementary yet contrasting. Written the same year and published together, Brahms’s two Op 51 Quartets are like dissimilar siblings with two different personalities, although clearly born out of the same creative imagination. The First is terse and tragic, contrasting churning emotions with gentle lyricism. The Second, by contrast, is on a grander scale, with a flashing Hungarian folk dance in its rollicking finale.