Outstanding quartet make their debut in Leamington

The performance at the Pump Room is the first of Leamington Music’s monthly international string quartet series of the year.

Making their debut in the town, the talented four are arriving following a concert in the Lake District, having already this month performed a five-concert tour around Scotland and in London.

Without much time for rest, the musicians will head to Banff in Canada in February for a fortnight’s residency, ahead of spring dates in Belgium and Holland.

Their programme tonight includes Haydn’s Quartet in B minor Opus 33 No 1, Mendelssohn’s Quartet in E flat Opus 12 and Schumann’s Quartet in A Opus 41 No 3.

Leamington Music’s director Richard Phillips said: “These three quartets to be played by the Heath were written over a period of just 60 years, 1782 to 1841, and clearly show how classical music at its very peak evolved into the equally exciting Romantic period.

“It will be good to have the Heath Quartet in Leamington, since I first met them here when they were still at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2005 and they then gave a splendid lunchtime concert in the 2007 Stratford on Avon Music Festival.

“It was obvious from the first time that here was another outstanding group from that hotbed for producing quartets in Manchester.”

The monthly quartet series continues on February 23 with the Martinu Quartet from the Czech Republic and finishes on March 16 with the Barbirolli Quartet, both of which have played in Leamington before.

Tickets are available from the Bridge House Theatre box office and the visitors’ information centre in Pump Room. Call 776438 or go online.