When TS Eliot drew together his sequence of reflections on humanity and time under the title Four Quartets, it was with reason. Structurally and sonically the poems are indebted to the way that chamber music works. And in their questing if impenetrable spirit they specifically owe something to the late quartets of Beethoven – which is why the big sell of this year’s Ryedale Festival in Yorkshire was a concert series in which the Heath Quartet played Beethoven’s music while actor Jeremy Irons read Eliot’s words.