Sunday 15th November 2026, 4pm – St John’s Church Broadstone

Interval refreshments included

Tickets: £13 Adults, £3 U18

About the ensemble:

The Award winning Neruda Quartet was founded at the Royal Academy of Music in October of 2024. The quartet’s name is a tribute to Moravian violinist, Wilma Neruda, one of the first female virtuosos and chamber music enthusiasts. Her fame was such that even Arthur Conan Doyle references her in A Study in Scarlet. The Neruda Quartet has been very fortunate to be able to benefit from the chamber resources of the Academy by having coachings and study days with the likes of Marije Johnston, Anthony Marwood, Sini Simmonen, John Thorne, Levon Chilingarian, Yoanna Prodanova, and Jim Sleigh.

Neruda has been very honoured by being chosen for several opportunities through RAM, including being selected as the only representatives of the Academy at the International Orchestral Symposium that was held at the Tianjin Juilliard School in May 2025. Additionally, Neruda is looking forward to a busy autumn and winter of concerts around London and the UK. In February this year the Neruda Quartet were awarded a prestigious place on the Tillet scheme, alongside the Dogada Wind quintet who appeared in Broadstone Music Series earlier this year. :https://www.thestrad.com/news/artists-announced-for-the-2026-tillett-debut-scheme/20924.article

Members of the Neruda Quartet:

Adriana Bec – violin
Yiu Hang Leung – violin
Mina Mazur – viola
Jim Goss – cello

Programme :

Beethoven – String Quartet in A minor, opus 132

Brahms String Quartet no 1 in C minor, opus 51

INFORMATION:
Beethoven’s Op. 132 and Brahms’s String Quartet No. 1 are linked through the development of the string quartet as a serious and deeply personal form of expression. Beethoven’s late quartet represents a radical expansion of the genre, particularly through the spiritual and reflective “Heiliger Dankgesang”. Nearly fifty years later, Brahms consciously confronted Beethoven’s legacy in his own First Quartet, using Beethovenian techniques of motivic development, dramatic contrast and tonal tension while developing a distinctly Romantic musical language. In this sense, Brahms’s quartet can be heard as both a continuation of Beethoven’s tradition and an attempt to establish his own voice within it.

Beethoven’s Op. 132 was written in 1825, during the extraordinary final period of his life. It is one of his late string quartets, works that are much more experimental, personal and emotionally intense than his earlier music. 

The most famous part is the third movement, the “Heiliger Dankgesang” (Holy Song of Thanksgiving). Beethoven had recently suffered a serious illness, and this movement feels like a musical expression of recovery, gratitude and spiritual reflection. It alternates between very slow, almost sacred music and sections marked “Neue Kraft fühlend” — “feeling new strength.”

Brahms’s First String Quartet was completed and published in 1873, almost 50 years after Beethoven’s Op. 132. Brahms was extremely nervous about writing string quartets because Beethoven’s quartets were considered such an enormous achievement. He reportedly destroyed around 20 earlier attempts before allowing his first two quartets to be published.

The quartet is in C minor, a particularly significant choice because C minor is strongly associated with Beethoven’s music and with ideas of struggle and dramatic tension. The first and fourth movements are energetic and intense, while the inner movements are more intimate and lyrical. A

Brahms therefore manages to sound both traditional and modern: you can hear Beethoven’s influence in the drama, motivic development and sense of struggle, but Brahms’s sound is darker, warmer and more Romantic.

The Quartet will be training some of our Poole Society for Young Musicians Youth Camerata String players in Chamber music earlier in the day as part of our Albert and Eugenie Frost Trust Scheme. Our Camerata members will join the quartet for an item in the programme.