Leamington Music, Fibonacci Quartet, Pump Room, Friday 14 February, 2025.

What good fortune the Pump Room should host four brilliant young musicians on Valentine’s Day who take the name Finobacci -  after the great Italian mathematician - the man credited with devising “nature’s secret code”, the “Finobacci sequence”.  No doubt many a valentine card had a similar secret code!! Cellist, Findlay Spence, ex Royal College, was quick to reinforce the worthiness of their namesake as a man who did much to promote the arts across a number of differing art forms.

Violinist, Luna De Mol - one of three founding members of the original quartet of Guildhall students - led a superb performance of Haydn’s Quartet in B flat major, Op. 76 No 4 ‘Sunrise’. Her tiny, slender fingers powerfully delivered the rising theme over the sustained chord that begins the work.  The graceful beauty of a highly emotive adagio preceded the very jolly, fast-paced, minuet with many a hint of Hungarian folk tunes Haydn collected during his stay at Eisenstadt, near the Hungarian border.

Violinist, Kryštof Kohut took over in the number one seat for Béla Bartok’s most challenging five-movement Quartet No.4, Sz91, best known as the work which created the “Bartok pizz”, a demanding technique of snapping the strings with middle finger and thumb. Interestingly Bartok experimented with incorporating the “Fibonacci sequence” into this work, a mammoth undertaking, full of harmonies which can, at first, can sound harsh, but nevertheless compelling. From travels in Transylvania, the composer collected numerous folk themes, many featuring in this delightfully symmetrical work of bridge form.  This tour de force, full of ‘glissando’, muted strings strumming, ‘col lengo’ and a fourth movement with all players placing their bows on the floor prior to embarking on mimicking a group of folk guitarists with the strumming and “Bartok pizz”.  This was quite the most amazing display of tenacity and determination seen at the Pump Room for a while with many in the audience very concerned at the potential damage to expensive instruments!!

After the Bartok drama and extensive display of bowing techniques, Schubert’s Quartet No 14 in D minor “Death and the Maiden” received a  performance of consummate elegance by this foursome destined for years at the top.