'Janácek bombarded Kamilla Stosslova with letters, three or four times a week," Heath Quartet leader Oliver Heath told us, "Even though the relationship was going nowhere. She only replied two or three times a year." Thus Heath introduced Janácek's Quartet No 2, which is appropriately entitled Intimate Letters. The viola, which might well be taking the part of Kamilla, answers the opening call of the first violin in very distant and steely fashion. Indeed, the work is generally steely in tone, with brief contrasts as the music suddenly takes on a tender, yearning tone - depicting the rare arrival of a letter from Kamilla, perhaps?

The music suited the Heath Quartet well, in this Oxford Chamber Music Society concert. Formed in 2002, the Quartet (Oliver Heath, Natalie Dick, Gary Pomeroy, and Christopher Murray) produced a translucent, if quite edgy, tone. The players are well matched, a point they proved from the start: the concert began with Haydn's Quartet in C, op 20 no 2. The cello takes the lead in the first bars of this quartet, in an opening that could almost have been written by Bach. The tragic second movement theme, played in unison, suited the Heath particularly well, in a performance that underlined the fact that this is not one of Haydn's sunniest works - the reason, perhaps, why it is not often played. Spot-on intonation is also particularly vital, not that this proved to be a problem for these musicians, who seem to have left mere technical difficulties well behind them.

Cellist Christopher Murray stood up to introduce the final work, Beethoven's Quartet in E minor op 59 no 2, the second of the three Razumovsky quartets. Razumovsky was "a young and handsome cellist like myself," announced Murray amid much laughter. The Heath's performance of this great quartet emphasised, to memorable effect, both the drama and the unease in the music.