REVIEW - Courtesy, Daily Echo

Bournemouth Chamber Music Society, Talbot Heath School

Quartet draw out emotion to full effect

A full house marked the end of an era for the BCMS after a quarter century at its current venue, October sees them at Bournemouth University.

The big draw for this final concert was international star clarinettist Emma Johnson with the youthful Harpham String Quartet featuring Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet.

Spine tinglingly beautiful playing emanated from Johnson’s instrument in one of Brahms’ most ravishing scores. There were moments of highly impassioned playing set against the Harpham Quartet’s intensely musical embrace, and with singular sensitivity in the Adagio their ability for whisper quiet nuancing was Elysian. The Andante’s generally energetic yet elegantly lyrical scherzo and the finale’s mixture of tender and swiftly flowing variations left us all enthralled.

Notwithstanding a recently scheduled local performance Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet is uncommon. Written at the behest of his teacher Stanford ‘not within Brahms’ influence’, this colourful work sparkles with the warm, harmonious clarinet playing embedded in the string quartet’s ambient charms. There is Dvorakian wistfulness, rhythmic sway and playful jauntiness in the course its four movements all performed here with great affection.

The Harpham Quartet’s members; Anna Harpham and Ciaran McCabe, violins, Ann Beilby, viola and Rowena Calvert, cello presented Puccini’s short elegy Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums; they are the Italian flower of mourning) played with wonderful poignancy.

Mike Marsh