RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet with Louise Williams (viola)

Quartet No 1 in E minor - Smetana

Quartet No 1 - Janacek

Quintet n E flat, Op 97 - Dvorak

The Vanbrugh String Quartet in its International Chamber Music series has arrived at the Czech composers and on Sunday emptied a cornucopia of beguiling tunes, lively in the Smetana, frenetic in the Janacek and sweetly cosseting in the Dvorak.

The pieces were played with a dynamism and energy that heightened their impact and made plain that Smetana and Janacek were very close musically. It would not require a wide stretch of imagination to visualise a hitherto unknown quartet by Janacek, constructed with little bits of Smetana's music, reassembled in the most striking order. The subtitle of Smetana's Quartet No. 1, From My Life, indicates how deeply he felt about it, and his own description of its movements - romantic yearning, love of the dance, first love, and the spirit of rationalism - are almost an invitation to wallow in sentiment. The Vanbrugh, however, played so that one forgot the programme and was carried along on the current of the music.

Janacek's Quartet No. 1 is equally passionate - the subtitle, The Kreutzer Sonata, refers to jealousy - but it sounds chaotic compared with the Smetana. Surprisingly it was less overwhelming than the Smetana - its wildly fluctuating moods had a diminishing effect.

For the last work in its recital in the NCH, the Vanbrugh was joined by Louise Williams (viola) for Dvorak's Quintet Op 97. Listening to this work it is hard to believe that the composer had ever known unhappiness. Unlike the two previous works, this breathes an air of gaiety and contentment, and the performance conveyed this happiness with a zest that did not allow it to cloy.