Nash Ensemble in concert

Jun 5 2009 by Our Correspondent, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

AFTER the Nash Ensemble’s amazing concert of the previous evening it is a pleasure to report that the second concert on Friday in Perth Concert Hall, though different in subtleties, was just as good.

They began with Britten’s Three Divertimenti for string quartet. Written in 1936 they would have shocked John Ireland, his old composition teacher by their modernism. Now, rather than iconoclastic, they appear fresh and innovative, The fanfare-like opening to the non-march-like March and succeeding effects such as harmonics now open the ears rather than painfully stretching them. The fey Waltz with its stronger central section and the exciting moto perpetuo of the Burlesque were given by the Nash Ensemble with adroitness and conviction.

One of the most perfect works ever written followed: Mozart’s Quintet in C Major K515. As played by the Nash the first movement was suave and urbane lent warmth by genius. A pleasure in the slow movement was the ‘conversation’ between first violin, Marianne Thorsen, and first viola, Philip Dukes. Pairings of instruments were important in the Menuetto and the Nash delighted in the long Trio. The sheer beauty of sound and a sense of playfulness enlivened the final Allegro, which ran as though the five characters were involved in one of Mozart’s superb operatic finales.

Dvorak’s Quintet in E Flat major Op.97, which brought the Nash’s programme to an end, had both vigour and relaxation plus, as in the final part of the first movement, a pure joy in the play of sonority. How can anything so joyous and seemingly carefree be so balanced to a nicety?

Ian Stuart-Hunter