Of the halls in which the revamped Edinburgh Quartet has been appearing recently, the Queen's is in some ways the trickiest. But if the sound on Sunday was sometimes edgy it was not unsuited to the opening work, Haydn's masterpiece in D minor, opus 76 number 2, which demands a rawness of tone unusual among the quartets of this period in his output.
In the stark harmonies of the first and third movements, the players keenly conveyed the wiry energy of the music. Only in the graceful slow movement would a touch more mellowness have been welcome, as it would also have been in Dvorak's delectable American quartet at the end of the programme, where rhythmic patterns tended to be over-obtrusive and only the first violin - the recently-appointed Susanne Stanzeleit - gave the music the lift and charm it needed.
But it was the central work, Bartok's Quartet no 1, which was the concert's principal raison
d'etre, launching a survey of all six of his quartets to be given, with Haydn as foil, between now and March. With their balance between lyricism and acerbity, sombreness and sardonic humour, these are works to challenge any ensemble's resources, not least in the sustained seriousness of number one.
As their steadily intensifying performance confirmed, the players had the measure of the music and of its sense of mystery. The speed fluctuations were carefully judged, the contrasts between bareness and complexity of utterance thoughtfully balanced, catching the sorrowful beauty which, in one way or another, lies behind all these works. It boded well for the remainder of the concert.
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