Chiaroscuro Quartet

The Chiaroscuro Quartet is named for the Italian term for light and shade in art, an apt description of their refined phrasing and ability to illuminate familiar works with their subtle period-instrument tones. The ensemble’s recording of Mendelssohn’s Op. 13 prompted the Observer to conclude that its ‘unadorned sound is a shock to the ears of the best, most arresting kind’. It begins this morning with the intricate musical argument of Beethoven’s final string quartet, considered by the composer Robert Simpson to contain ‘the most sensitively coloured quartet writing in existence’.