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This candlelit evening at the atmospheric Sam Wanamaker Playhouse with the Chilingirian String Quartet and friends had more of a cosy Christmas feel than yet another World War I commemoration.

For the first of two short concerts that the Chilingirian Quartet presented on the opening evening of the Kings Place Festival, they focused on two quartets by Joseph Haydn. Both were written in 1793 following a previous highly successful trip Haydn had made to England, and were intended to satisfy the demand of London audiences.The String Quartet in C, Op. 74 no.

The Chilingirian Quartet’s second concert at the Kings Place Festival followed barely twenty minutes after their preceding concert had concluded. Three factors were common between both events: the playing of two works without an interval, the presence of Joseph Haydn, and, most importantly, a uniformly high standard of musicianship.

The renowned Chilingirian Quartet gave an electrifying performance of celebrated string quartets by Bartok, Haydn and Beethoven at London's Wigmore Hall.The concert began with an outstanding rendition of Bartok’s Fourth String Quartet (1928), which consists of five movements in a loose ‘arch’ form.