THE string quartet would seem to be a homogenous ensemble that offers little tonal variety. But composers and players have found ways around this apparent limitation.

At last night’s Huddersfield Music Society concert, given by one of the world’s finest quartets, all of the compositions exploited various bowing and plucking techniques that create special effects.

We expect this sort of thing in the work of later quartet composers such as Bartok, but Haydn too makes judicious use of special techniques.

The final movement of his Quartet in D Major Opus 50 No 6 calls for repeated notes of the same pitch to alternate between different strings, creating a highly distinctive sound that led to this quartet being nicknamed The Frog.

In his intense and absorbing String Quartet No 3, Martinu demands a variety of special bowings and pizzicatos. The final work in the programme, Smetana’s Quartet No 1 in E minor, was relatively restrained in this respect, although at one point we heard an exultantly high harmonic note from the first violin and the whole work ends to wonderful effect with plucked notes chimed out by all the players.

Needless to say, the Prazak String Quartet, from Prague, displayed complete mastery of every technical and musical demand made by their repertoire.

The sheer quality of the ensemble playing was often remarkable – even the players’ body language seemed to be in unison – but there was also much fine individual playing, such as the declamatory viola at the beginning of the Smetana. This latter quartet was autobiographical in intent and in these solo passages we seemed to hear the voice of the composer.