Sunday Morning Coffee Concert

The Razumovsky Quartet was formed in 2020 by four close friends: Ellie Fagg, Tom Norris, Dorothea Vogel and Orlando Jopling. Each member of the quartet brings with them a wealth of experience; Dorothea as a member of the Allegri Quartet for many years, Tom a principal member of the LSO, Orlando as a highly regarded conductor and cellist and Ellie, an avid chamber musician with experience of leading and directing small ensembles and chamber orchestras. Busy performing schedules meant that they had hardly ever had the a chance to explore music together, until the pandemic gave them the opportunity, during which time they performed many extraordinary concerts online to hundreds of people around the world and explored some of the greatest works in the repertoire.

The programme will start with Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1, a piece written in reaction to a failed relationship with the violinist Stefi Geyer. It is a journey from darkness to light, in which Bartok develops his mature tonal language. After the break they will play Brahms’ String Quartet No. 2, of which the first movement is centred on the notes F A E which stand for “Frei, aber einsam” (free, but lonely), which was Joseph Joachim’s Motto. Brahms offered his own twist, F A F, “Frei, aber froh” (Free, but joyful), which emerges throughout the score.