Consone Quartet x Chiaroscuro Quartet: Mendelssohn's Octet

Consone Quartet and Chiaroscuro Quartet are joining forces at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall on Wednesday 24 February 2027, for a single piece of music: Mendelssohn's Octet in E-flat. It's a rush-hour concert, starting at 6pm, which puts it right in that gap between the working day and the evening.

If you're not familiar with the piece, it's one of the most famous works of chamber music ever written. Mendelssohn wrote it for eight string players—four violins, two violas, and two cellos—and it's known for its warmth and its sweeping, melodic lines. It's a big, lush thing, and having two quartets come together to play it is exactly how it was meant to sound.

That's where the two ensembles come in. Both Consone and Chiaroscuro are period-instrument groups, meaning they play on instruments that match the era Mendelssohn lived in, rather than the modern versions you'll see in most orchestras. When you hear the Octet played this way, the sound changes—it's a bit leaner and more transparent, and it lets you hear the inner parts of the music more clearly. It's a different experience from the polished, heavy sound of a modern string ensemble.

Bringing two leading period quartets together for one concert is a rare thing, and doing it in the middle of the week makes it an easy one to fit in. The concert is at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, part of the University of York, and it starts at 6pm on Wednesday 24 February 2027.