Beethoven in the Revolutionary Drawing Room

The Revolutionary Drawing Room is the intriguing name for a string quartet playing on period instruments. This season the players, Adrian Butterfield, Kathryn Parry, Rachel Stott and Ruth Alford, are embarking on their first complete cycle of the Beethoven quartets, at St. John’s Smith Square. Spread over three years, the cycle started in October and continues with the second concert on Sunday 6 November. For each of the 2016/17 concerts, the quartet is pairing Beethoven's Op.18 quartets with Haydn’s final quartets which were commissioned by the same patron, Prince Lobkovicz. The final concert this season is on 26 February 2017

The Revolutionary Drawing Room performs late 18th- and 19th-century repertoire with a sound derived from the gut strings used on the instruments. This was a period of significant change and the forging of new styles, forms and tastes both in the music and in the instruments used. So the as well as using original bows, or modern copies, and the group often employ more than one in a concert depending on the range of repertoire. They also enjoy talking to our audiences, explaining the background of the works we are playing and our choices of equipment and playing styles.

Full details of the Beethoven cycle from the quartet's website.