We are delighted to welcome BBC New Generation artists, the Kleio Quartet. They open with Beethoven’s Quartet Serioso, a work that grabs the listener’s attention from its brusquely dramatic, unison opening to the last note of its surprisingly light-hearted finale. Webern’s Langsamer Satz was written by the twenty-two-year-old composer during his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, but its single movement is as gorgeously Romantic as anything penned by Brahms or Wagner!

The Kleio continue their programme with one of the six quartets written by Haydn, dedicated to the ’cello-playing King Friedrich William II of Prussia. Blending Haydn’s customary blend of wit and profundity, the outer movements of the F major Quartet are among the most playful of the set, contrasting sharply with the rhapsodic poco adagio which has given the work its nickname: The Dream.

Mendelssohn’s E flat major Quartet is the last of three dedicated to the Crown Prince Oscar of Sweden. Mendelssohn’s quartets tend to be underrepresented on the concert platform, but the work’s joyful energy should win it new friends.