The prize-winning but still youthful Kleio Quartet provided a fitting final to an already
outstanding season. Starting out very much at the deep end with Beethoven’s Quartet
Opus 95, described by the composer at the time as ‘not a pretty piece’ the players tore
into it with all the vim that he could possibly have wished for. Setting the pace from the
start, leader Yume Fujisan displayed virtuosity rich in promise for what was still yet to come. This was followed by Kaija Saariaho’s Terra Memoria, her late string quartet composed in 2006. In this constantly transforming sound world, swirling fragments of melody echo one another, blur and eventually fade. This challenging piece has long been a favourite with the quartet, who gave it their all.

After the interval, Webern’s 1909 Fünf Sätze, translated as Five Movements, came
across as positively traditional in comparison. Described by second violinist Katherine
Yoon as ‘a sequence of concentrated emotional flashes,’ the composer in less than ten minutes could still come up with a convincing new musical world of his own making. It was followed by Mendelssohn’s exuberant Quartet Opus 44, no 3, written in 1838 shortly after his honeymoon when the composer was aged 31. Packed with brilliant passage work performed at high speed and evident good humour this brought the evening to a perfect close. Acknowledging generous applause the players made their way to their dressing room, with one of them reprising the main theme on the violin as they went upstairs to much laughter - an appropriate end to a memorable concert.