The 2013-14 Coffee Concert season came to a fitting conclusion on Sunday with a visit from the much-honoured Szymanowski String Quartet.

Having the musicians facing each other in the centre of the audience allowed great interaction and communication among the performers, and Haydn’s Quartet in B Minor was the perfect vehicle for this lively conversation between the instruments to get under way.

The musicians revealed why they have been showered with awards as they delightfully brought out the extraordinary in Haydn’s composition.

Next up was a more eclectic piece by their Polish namesake Karol Szymanowski. Whereas the extraordinary in Haydn was found just beneath the surface, this piece from 1927 had it all laid bare in a sometimes frenetic score that the quartet nevertheless delivered with style and precision.

No one would accuse Dvorak’s music of lacking a soul and his String Quartet in G was a great finale. The Czech composer paid a brief visit to Brighton in 1885 (I didn’t know that until now) and found it “enchantingly lovely”, referring as much to the female bathers as the boats “countless, large and small”.

Dvorak’s music, full of aching emotion, was performed with passion, energy and purpose and the quartet found the heartbeat of a wonderfully expressive piece.