Bartók String Quartet no. 1, played by the Razumovsky Quartet for the inaugural Raz Club evening

Bartók String Quartet no. 1
Composed 1909, premièred 19 March 1910 in Budapest
Lento, Allegretto, Introduzione & Allegro Vivace
Orlando writes: The quartet is a journey from dark to light - from the intense, time-stretching slow build of the first movement, springing from deep pangs of unrequited love and despair, through a hesitant waltz and finally building layer on layer of ferocious energy to end in a forceful whirlwind of a finale.
The 25-year-old Bartók had fallen head over heels for a violinist studying at the Budapest Conservatoire; the hair-raisingly talented and beautiful Stefi Geyer. In a letter to her, he called the first movement a "funeral dirge" and its opening notes trace a motif which first appeared in his Violin Concerto No. 1, a fantastic work dedicated to Geyer and suppressed by Bartók for many years - it was too personal a statement to be made public.
The Razumovsky Quartet
Ellie Fagg and Tom Norris, violins
Dorothea Vogel, viola
Orlando Jopling, Cello