It was always going to be a work by Mozart that introduced Sydney audiences to the talented young Parisian Quatuor Van Kuijk – “his music has a way of binding us together”, the group says in its programme note for their Opera House debut in the Utzon Music series.

Quatuor Van Kuijk, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. Photo Cassandra Hannagan

Fresh from gigs at UKARIA in South Australia and the Canberra Festival, the foursome showed they are very together under leader Nicolas Van Kuijk and impressed from the start with the jubilant opening horn call of the K. 458 Hunt Quartet, the fourth of the set of six “children” the younger composer dedicated to his friend and teacher Joseph Haydn.

As the chase of the first movement progressed the first violin’s sweet, nuanced tone was buoyed by superbly co-ordinated ensemble work from second violin Sylvain Favre-Bulle, violist Emmanuel Francois and cellist Anthony Kondo. There was plenty of bounce as the hounds followed the horses and it was immediately obvious that here was a group that was alive to the wit as well as the beauty of Mozart’s score.

The adagio was sublimely...