This week's series of Lunchtime Concerts features concerts recorded in Dublin, Belfast and Omagh. The members of the Capuçon Trio performed an all-Fauré programme in Dublin's National Concert Hall last spring. Meanwhile, BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, the Danish Quartet took part in Moving on Music's Tour of Northern Ireland during the autumn. Today a violin sonata by Fauré and a string quartet by Haydn.
The first of Fauré's two violin sonatas, the Sonata in A major, Op. 13, was written in 1875 and 1876. Dedicated to Paul Viardot, the son of the singer Pauline Viardot and brother of the girl to whom Fauré was briefly engaged, it is considered one of his early masterpieces. Youthfulness, elegance and the ease of the melody, for which Fauré became synonymous, are apparent from the beginning. Haydn's F minor string quartet, written in 1771, goes back to the earliest days of the string quartet. Throughout the six quartets that make up Opus 20 Haydn introduces compositional techniques that were to shape and define the genre. The set is renowned for the range and contrast of emotion explored in each quarter. The sorrowful No.5 in F minor is one of the best known and immediately recognisable from its opening elegiac main theme.

Fauré: Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major, Op. 13
Renaud Capuçon, violin; Michel Dalberto, piano

Haydn: String Quartet Op 20 No. 5
Danish String Quartet
Frederik Øland, violin; Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, violin;
Asbjørn Nørgaard, viola; Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, cello. Show less