An exciting young Dutch-based ensemble, performing on gut strings, brings flair and historically informed style to four little-known examples of repertoire from the dawn of the string quartet.


An E flat major Quartet by Gaetano Pugnani (1731-1798) retains traces of Baroque grammar to its phrasing, while a C minor Quartet by Boccherini (1743-1805) is marked by the surges of pathos that belong to the key signature as reinterpreted by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Maddalena Sirmen (1745-1818) wrote six quartets of which No.5 in F major is a remarkably close-woven and reflective work, hardly a display piece in the tradition of her teacher Tartini but touched throughout with the spirit of subtle innovation we associate with Haydn. Finally, the C major Quartet of Felice Giardini (1716-1796) is distinguished by an unusually rich viola part which may arise from the circumstances of its composition in London, where the composer played his violin with both the painter Thomas Gainsborough and the Prince of Wales, who became King George IV.