Haydn and Arnold string quartets

St. Peter’s Church, Streatham

• Haydn: op. 33/3 ‘Bird’
• Arnold: String Quartet No. 2

Free admission

If Haydn’s works enjoy a hallowed place in the string quartet repertoire, the same cannot be said of Malcolm Arnold’s. Despite being  remembered today for his colourful orchestral scores, Malcolm Arnold wrote eloquently for smaller forces, and thought his two quartets to be among his best works. The second was composed at a time of considerable personal anguish, to which the piece bears powerful witness.  As with Arnold’s first work in the genre, it contains some of his most technically complex and emotionally dark music, far from the comic tone often found in his occasional or lighter works.