Haydn & Mozart: Consone Quartet | BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert

BBC New Generation Artists, the Consone Quartet bring a historically informed perspective to two of Mozart and Haydn’s loveliest string quartets.

No musical friendship was closer than that of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – two supreme creators, separated in age by decades, but united by their shared admiration for each other’s genius. Today, the sweetness and fantasy of Haydn’s ‘Lark’ Quartet meets the untrammelled exuberance of the young Mozart at the absolute peak of his chamber music game.

It’s a truly life-affirming programme for the Consone Quartet – the very first string quartet on the BBC New Generation Artists scheme to play on period instruments. These four young players use the techniques of the late 18th century to get straight to the heart of some of the most inventive chamber music ever written. The results have never sounded fresher.

'I tell you, before God and as an honest man: your son is the greatest composer known to me' – Haydn to Leopold Mozart