THE top rank Maggini String Quartet is on a valuable quest to bring British string quartets to an international audience through their highly regarded recordings for Naxos.

Malcolm Arnold’s String Quartet No 2 featured as the centrepiece of this BCMS concert, revealing and revelling in his ambiguous diversity of music. The Maggini players, Susanne Stanzeleit and David Angel, violins, Martin Outram, viola and Michal Kaznowski, cello, contrasted the acerbic wit against toothsome melody with amiable passion.

There is the extraordinary second movement in which the first violin leads in with a rhapsodic solo then turns to irish folk dance to be angrily shouted down by the other three instruments. A strangely compelling work that the Maggini exposed in all its kaleidoscopic detail.

Haydn’s late Opus 77 No 1 Quartet shows the composer’s mastery, espousing gentle humour in mature development. The distinctive timbre of each instrument conveyed complimentary exchanges of the opening movement with morning-fresh grace, the Adagio in dignified solemnity and the latter movements with gleeful energy.

Rich harmonies hallmark Brahms’ Quartet in C Minor Opus 51 No 1. The Maggini’s controlled display bestowed warmth and underpinned the first three movements with latent energy. The finale’s parade of luxuriantly lyrical arguments came with visceral elan.

Mike Marsh