Mark-Anthony Turnage's Contusion (or "bruise") opened this lunchtime recital by the Cavaleri Quartet, one of the finest young London-based string quartets.
They followed this with Tchaikovsky's First Quartet, the slow movement of which - often performed separately in various arrangements - moved Leo Tolstoy to tears when he first heard it.
Contusion, composed in 2014, was inspired by Sylvia Plath's eponymous poem, written 11 days before her suicide in 1963.
The poem comprises 12 terse and bleak lines; Turnage's quartet is somewhat longer and echoes the text. This was not easy music to listen to - nor easy to play - but the Cavaleri potently evoked the anger and anguish of the poem.
Pyotr Tchaikovsky's first String Quartet In D major, composed in 1871, was rather longer and in traditional four-movement sonata form. Tchaikovsky transcended this, brilliantly and typically combining beauty and elegance with boisterous exuberance, dance-like rhythms and a wealth of melodic material including several Russian and Ukrainian folk songs.
The Cavaleri performed the Tchaikovsky with great verve throughout but the Scherzo Third Movement and the Finale were particularly exciting as the momentum of the music was maintained despite many changes of rhythm, tempo and mood.
Four stars
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