Consone Quartet & Friends: Brahms & Schoenberg

Renowned period instrument ensemble the Consone Quartet are joined by violist Francesca Gilbert and cellist Alexander Rolton for a tour of their programme pairing sextets by Brahms and Schoenberg, played on gut strings. Brahms's love of rich textures made writing string sextets a natural choice. His Sextet No. 1 in B flat, Op. 18, genially unfolds with an abundance of melody; contrast being provided by the darker tones of the second movement’s variations featuring a particularly rich harmonic palette. Many music lovers associate Arnold Schoenberg with the more challenging manifestations of Modernism, and it can be a surprise to discover that he started off expressing himself in the language of late Romanticism as developed by Brahms and Wagner, as in Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4.