Chamber Music - Ruisi Quartet at Holkham Hall

5.30pm – Pre-concert talk by Simon Rowland-Jones

Simon Rowland-Jones explores Béla Bartók’s Second String Quartet, which has been described as “the most sonically ravishing music Bartók ever composed”, with
assistance from the Ruisi Quartet’s live illustrations.

7pm - Ruisi Quartet

Alessandro Ruisi and Oliver Cave - violins, Luba Tunnicliffe - viola and Max Ruisi - cello.

Founded in 2012 by brothers Alessandro and Max, the Ruisi Quartet has quickly established a reputation as one of the leading British quartets of its generation, delivering performances that are “strikingly immediate, committed and direct.” They won the Royal Philharmonic Society award for Young British String Players 2015 and have performed at Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and Kings Place. In 2016 they were Tunnell Trust Award winners and in 2017 were selected as part of Making Music’s CPG Young Artists scheme, both awards resulting in performances around the UK. Stravinsky neglected the medium of the string quartet, but in his brief ‘Three Pieces for String Quartet’ realised its full potential with an extraordinary confidence and flair. Bartók’s Second Quartet was written during the First World War, the period when this great master of 20th century quartets was still rooted in his own romanticism, but already showing signs of branching out into the new colours and sounds that were to define his originality as a quartet composer. Beethoven’s masterpiece, the ‘Razumovsky No.2’, rounds off this intriguing and striking programme.