Wednesday 15 October 2025 7:30pm

Mahler –  Piano quartet in A minor

Brahms – Piano quartet in C minor, op 60

Saint-Saëns – Piano quartet in B flat major, op 41

The Berlin-based Notos Piano Quartet has been praised by audiences and critics alike for its ‘virtuosic brilliance and technical perfection’ as well as ‘its sense of balance and interplay’. Since its formation in 2007, the group has won six first prizes in international competitions. The social commitment of the ensemble is reflected in its promotion of young musicians—having taught at RNCM in Manchester and promoting its own Notos Chamber Music Academy.

Their programme for Ilkley contains three contrasting works from the 1870s. The Brahms quartet, his third, is filled with romantic tribulation, references to Clara Schumann abound. After a long gestation the quartet was first performed in Vienna in 1875. The Mahler work—his only piece of chamber music, in just one movement—premiered the following year again in Vienna but at the Conservatory where he was studying. Saint-Saëns’ piano quartet is a staple of the repertoire, full of tuneful lyricism, the themes of its four movements coming together at the end in a cheerful fugato.