Consone Quartet: it’s not every day that a period string quartet plays music by a living composer

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It’s not every day that a period string quartet gets to play music written by a living composer. We spend so much of our lives working with historical equipment, poring over old scores and performing editions, listening to early recordings and trying to figure out what a composer was really after. What inspired them. What sound-world they imagined. To have the composer in the room with you, to be able to ask questions and to explore the music together, is both a novelty and a privilege for us.  

We were thrilled when Oliver Leith agreed to write us a piece in our 10th anniversary year. The brief was… well, brief – something chaconne-inspired. This was in honour of our late friend, Philip Yeeles, who was a fan of chaconnes and of the Consone Quartet.

The chaconne theme is subtle, but palpable. Oliver describes the piece as ’seven endings — or different perspectives of the same end; close ups, swooping, rolling oil landscapes and glimpses.’ Of the Chaconne he says “the image started as a look at the idea of the chaconne, a ‘form’ that, over centuries has been pulled through bushes of different shapes, to become a feeling more than a codified thing… There are familiar chaconne tropes, repetitions, descending drooping laments, but those things are more about a feeling than they are form.’ The writing is atmospheric and colourful, somehow perfectly suited to the visceral timbre and blend of our gut strings.  

The writing is atmospheric and colourful, somehow perfectly suited to the visceral timbre and blend of our gut strings

This commission is just one part of our anniversary celebrations. Over the last three years we have been associate ensemble at Paxton House in the Scottish borders, and 2025 marks our final year. We have curated programmes each summer, featuring one of Schumann’s three quartets each time. With Schumann as our common denominator, we have explored his relationships with his contemporaries and also the way in which he was inspired by (and in turn provided inspiration) for other composers throughout history. It has been a treat to plan programmes with such a long scope, creating a narrative that spins through the three years of our residency. We have also enjoyed getting to know the Paxton audience better and seeing familiar faces each year in the same magical setting. 

Collaboration is a big part of what we do and so we have invited lots of our musical colleagues to come and join us in Paxton: we have explored string sextets (including a new commission by Gavin Bryars) with violist Francesca Gilbert and cellist Alexander Rolton and we have delved into the lieder world with song arrangements alongside mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston. This year we team up with Philip Higham for Schubert’s Quintet in C major and Katherine Spencer for the Brahms Clarinet Quintet.  

Aside from our Paxton collaborations, we are currently touring a programme with keyboard player Kristian Bezuidenhout. The partnership has taken us to Germany and Austria, and in the autumn we will travel to the USA and Canada. Later this year, we will be joined yet again by Francesca Gilbert and Alexander Rolton for Brahms’ B flat major sextet and Schoenberg’s iconic Verklärte Nacht. The piece is, unusually, programmatic; the writing complex, lush and highly chromatic – great fun on gut strings!  

We have been recording more than ever this year: the second volume in our Mendelssohn CD cycle with Linn Records will be out later in the autumn and we will record the third and final disc of the set in January 2026. We are excited to record a lieder programme with fellow BBC New Generation Artist, Helen Charlston, on BIS records later in the year. Bill Thorp, a great friend of Consone, has lovingly arranged songs for us by both Clara and Robert Schumann, as well as Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, and they work so well for string quartet.

The Consone Quartet performs as associate ensemble at Music at Paxton on 19 and 20 July 2025. Find out more here.

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