Wigmore Hall, LondonBritten’s second string quartet was framed by forward-looking works by Haydn and Beethoven with each work sounding fresh in an entrancing concertRight from the start of this concert it was clear that we were in for more of the kind of superlative music-making we have come almost to take for granted from the Takács Quartet. They began with Haydn’s Quartet in C, Op. 54 No.2, and there was something in the way that all four players seized tenaciously upon the opening chord, then again on the next one, and the next – but each time subtly different. Other groups might have given us short sentences; the Takács gave us a whole paragraph, and the start of a story. None of the music on the programme ever sat still.Two unconventional, forward-looking classical quartets framed Britten’s No. 2, written in 1945 – which in its final movement nods the other way, back to the baroque era and even earlier. The first movement of the Haydn was ebullient, but it was in the second that the spell-weaving really began, the music quickly reaching a high level of intensity as first violinist Edward Dusinberre traced skittish, rhapsodic lines over the others. The fourth movement continued this rapt atmosphere, now with cellist András Fejér tracing slow arpeggios upwards with almost impossible sweetness. Continue reading...