Classical: Vogler String Quartet

VOGLER STRING QUARTET Clarion Hotel, Sligo Fri 8pm €22 087-9985231 (includes wine reception); St Patrick’s Church, Dalkey Tues…

VOGLER STRING QUARTET Clarion Hotel, Sligo Fri 8pm €22 087-9985231 (includes wine reception); St Patrick's Church, Dalkey Tues 8pm €25 01-2804676:If the members of the Vogler String Quartet are interested in anniversaries they've got two big ones of their own to celebrate this year. It's 21 years since they gave their first concert in Ireland and 10 since they started work as ensemble-in-residence in Sligo.

They will be back in Co Sligo for the Vogler Spring Festival at Drumcliffe over the May bank holiday weekend. But they’re also playing in Sligo town tonight, with a repeat at St Patrick’s Church in Dalkey on Tuesday.

The Dalkey concert is another venture by the indefatigable John Ruddock, who brought the Voglers to Ireland in the first place. He ran a hugely successful fund-

raising concert in Dalkey last September, and now he wants to find out if there might be a regular audience for concerts in the venue.

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The Voglers' programme includes quartets by Haydn (the one nicknamed the Rider) and Beethoven (the second of the Rasumovskyset) as well as the First Quartet by Erwin Schulhoff, a Czech composer who dabbled in Dadaism, set the Communist Manifestoto music, and died an early death in a concentration camp in 1942. His First Quartet, written in 1924, is a melting-pot of contemporary influences.

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan is a music critic and Irish Times contributor