The Bartholdy Quartet at The Assembly House

On the afternoon of Sunday 19th May 2013 I attended the Royal Academy of Music concert at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival featuring The Bartholdy Quartet and Kei Takumi at The Assembly House, Norwich. This annual visit from the Royal Academy of Music is a vital and much loved feature of the Festival.

The programme consisted of String Quartet No.25 in C Op.20 No.2 - Haydn and Piano Quintet in G minor Op.57 - Shostakovich. The Bartholdy Quartet are Tessa Ho - violin, Marisol Lee - violin, Ricardo Gasper - viola and Raphael Lang - cello. Pianist Kei Takumi studied with Vera Gornostaeva and Hironao Suzuki at the Yamaha Music School.

Joseph Haydn composed the six string quartets from Op.20 in 1772 and are among the great works that earned him the nickname 'the father of the string quartet'. At the time of these compositions Haydn's musical ideas were influenced by the ongoing shift in European philosophical and political thought.

Piano Quintet in G minor, Op.57 was composed by Dimitri Shostakovich in 1940. It was written for the Beethoven Quartet and was premiered by them with Shostakovich himself at the piano on 23rd November 1940 at the Moscow Conservatory, to great success. In 1941, it was awarded the Stalin Prize.

This was a wonderful afternoon performance from The Bartholdy Quartet who after playing Haydn's String Quartet were joined by pianist Kei Takumi for the Shostakovich Piano Quintet. This is the part of the Festival where we get to hear the classical music stars of tomorrow and based on the music played at this concert, The Bartholdy Quartet and Kei Takumi have a bright future ahead of them.