Performance: International Chamber Music Festival

Concert Chamber

Review: Heath Lees

As this festival continues, it provides an ever-expanding shop window of music that is hardly ever available here at the professional level.

The expansion is in both directions, too, since the baroque and classical offerings concentrate on lesser-known works and overlooked composers, while the modern pieces are sometimes a revelation, always challenging.

So the memory of Tuesday night's magical duo "Rejoice!" by Sofia Gubaidulina was in many minds when the same two players - James Buswell (violin) and Carol Ou (cello) - opened last night's programme with the Ravel Duo for Violin and Cello.

Alas, the Russian magic had worn thin, and not been replaced by the necessary French gracefulness and charm that Ravel's piece requires. But Lutoslawski's Partita for violin and piano (Steven Copes and Sergei Babayan respectively) was highly intriguing in its many contrasts of passionate discourse, with free-floating recitative.

Babayan then returned to the stage as soloist for two items from Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus.

Some of his playing was luminous and highly coloured, but the second piece lost its mystical aspect, becoming somewhat hurried and ordinary.

Not so the Faure Piano Quartet op 45 in the second half.

Destroying those myths that say that Faure has no rhythmic power, this piece begins dynamically and forceful, then leads to a play of continuously dazzling modulations and sequences that come together at the end in a taut but grand re-statement.

The finale was taken at a breakneck speed, and again the tendency to play everything too strongly made the music lose some of its fleetness.

Still, the work is a monument of French chamber music, and the performance kept its stature well intact.

The festival continues tonight.