{TABLE} Quartet in D, Op.18, No 3 ............ Beethoven Quartet in F, Op.135 ................. Beethoven Quartet in B flat, Op.130 ............ Beethoven {/TABLE} LISTENING to the Vanbrugh String Quartet playing their way through the Beethoven String Quartets, one wishes that one could be hearing the works for the first time, not knowing what was to come or where Beethoven's revolutionary mind was leading.

Sunday's recital in the NCH opened with the third of the Op.18 set, where Beethoven plays delicately with the form be inherited from his predecessors. The Vanbrugh rightly avoided that high seriousness that is associated with the late quartets, but underlined those surprising changes of direction that occur even in Op. 18.

Though the Quartet in F was Beethoven's last quartet its position in the middle of the programme gave it a transitional feel and though its slow movement is the equal of the celebrated Cavatina of Op.130 the air of seriousness is filtered in the memory through the lightness of the surrounding movements.

The programme was crowned by the Quartet in B flat. The Vanbrugh gave a febrile intensity to the first two movements, relaxed for the Andante and the German dance and reached a peak of emotion in the Cavatina, carefully building up from an almost non descript beginning. The five movements seem to be leading towards some sort of summation and the Grosse Fuge that originally ended the work entered hitherto unexplored realms; Beethoven's second ending is a lesser work but the Vanbrugh played it with such spirit that it seemed of equal rank with the finale of the C sharp minor.